


Violent Delights, Violent Ends

by rhymeswithmonth



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Anxiety, Drama in General, Drug Addiction, Family Drama, Flirting, Forbidden Love, Insecure Louis, Insecure Zayn, M/M, Miscommunication, POV Multiple, Substance Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-03 04:16:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 21,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065644
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhymeswithmonth/pseuds/rhymeswithmonth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zayn hates loud, obnoxious drama students. Louis is a loud, obnoxious drama student. Harry is just sort of coasting through life, until life picks him up and throws him crashing headlong into Louis. Literally. Naill is a complete tool and everyone loves it.</p><p>Liam doesn't even go here.</p><p>In which they all attend the same university (except Liam) and there are turf wars and drug addictions and Louis has a man-cave, but it's a classy man-cave.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zayn

**Author's Note:**

> I've been holding back from contributing to this fandom for a while now, because of all of the needless drama that I've seen going on. But. I'm having a lot of fun writing this so...we'll see how this goes. If I abandon it it'll probably be because I've seen something that uninspires me. So that being said, PLEASE DON'T SEND ANY PIECE OF THIS TO ANYONE ASSOCIATED WITH 1D (not that I think it's good enough for anyone to ever consider doing so but still. So unclassy.
> 
> I started this story the day after my friend attempter suicide (she didn't manage to go all the way thankfully) and I needed a distraction from the world so, this happened. It's inspired by a lot of real life things. The setting is basically my school, and the little feud between Louis and Zayn consists of sentiments that my peers in the visual art department really do hold toward the theatre students, who do practice loudly all over the place. I personally like the noise, I think it sets a really cool atmosphere in the department, but some do not agree.
> 
> Also, this story contains mentions of drug abuse, alcoholism, and several characters who are dealing with a fair amount of anxiety.
> 
> Title based on a quote from Romeo and Juliet.

The thing is, Zayn loves the arts basement. Most people don't; every time he tries to drag Harry down from the loftier floors of the building to help him carry his pieces to or from his cubby, the younger boy complains and evades. "It's like a cave Z." He'll whine without fail. "It's so cramped and dark like...do they have to board up the windows like that? Are all of you artistic types allergic to natural sunlight?"

So objectively, the basement _is_ the crappiest wing of the school. The pipes creak and groan like something out of a horror movie, there are entire panels of ceiling missing, the hallways are narrow and tend to dead-end in the randomest places, and there's barely a single surface that hasn't been defaced in some way. But despite all of its flaws... _because_ all of its flaws, it's Zayn's favourite place in the world.

He loves the ancient easels, stubborn, impossible to adjust things that they are, caked in thick layers of paint and mediums. He loves the ugly off-pink floor tiles, and the fact that you can spill anything over them and not have to worry about cleaning it up. He loves the rickety rows of lockers crammed into any free space, an ironically comic-sans styled sign taped to the side reading **Do not use the tops of lockers as storage** , while dozens of canvases, pallets and pop cans sit stacked defiantly above. He loves the deflated armchairs, collected from the sides of roads and from grandparents' houses, full of holes and blackened with charcoal dust. 

Even when Zayn doesn't have class he comes down here. While other students flock to the library or the cafeteria or the students union, he makes his way down the echoing staircase to his haven. No matter what time of day it is, there's always a space for him somewhere, he'll don his headphones, crank up his music and either curl up in one of the chairs with some reading or his sketchbook, or claim one of the easels and paint.

He's set up now, coat slung over a stool, pallet loaded, brushes poised, canvas primed and waiting. He hits play and music swells in his ears, one of the obscure hybrid bands that Harry likes to sneak into his playlist when he's not looking. It's the twatty indie shit that he wants to hate, but Zayn can grudgingly admit (not out loud) that the stuff is inspiring. 

He dips his thickest brush into the blob of white; he's been using black primer lately, likes the challenge of working backwards. He closes his eyes and lets the music sink into his bones, adjusts his fingers on the wooden handle of the brush, and moves to make his first mark. 

A thunderous crash and a high-pitched yell crash through his peaceful bubble, making his wrist jerk involuntarily, the smooth white arch he'd been going for trailing off into a jagged zigzag. "Fuck!" He hisses, shoving his headphones down around his neck and grabbing his rag to blot at the mess futilely. Laughter and shrieks echo from the hallway, barely muffled by the closed door. 

Giving up on salvaging the surface, Zayn drops the brush into his water jar and steps away from the easel, taking a moment to breath, trying to calm the startled fluttering of his heart. It works...until the true significance of the racket outside sinks in. "No." He chokes, spinning on the heel of his boot to stare in horror at the bulletin board on the far wall. He strides to it, peering through a haze of red at the overflowing papers. There are the usual posters for the student gallery, staff shows, ads for models, sign-up sheets for community classes and collaborations. And there, smack dab in the middle, in garish hot pink and black, exactly what he'd feared. 

From outside the voices grow louder, a dozen raucous voices rising into a warped choir of off-key words and garbled lines. It's that time of year again. And this year it's a thousand times worse. Ballooning across the top of the poster is the title, proudly proclaiming this semester’s musical is **GREASE LIGHTNING!**

Zayn grinds his teeth hard enough to send a jolt of pain through his jaw. It's deeply satisfying to grip the corner of the glossy paper and /rip/ a strip clean through Louis Tomlinson's smug face.

 

///

 

Theatre students are, hands down, the loudest group of people that Zayn's ever encountered. And Louis Tomlinson is the worst of the lot. 

It's not that Zayn hates loud people, hell, he hangs out with Harry and Naill who seem to sing more than they speak, but he does hate people who don't know when to shut up. So. He hates Louis Tomlinson.

It's like now. Zayn is five seconds from sucker-punching the guy in the mouth. He's pretty sure his ire is clear on his face; he feels the blood sizzling high in the skin of his cheeks, and there's a rhythmic throbbing in his head that means that the vein there must be bulging visibly. But Tomlinson won't shut his fucking mouth.

"I mean where do _you_ propose we practice then Malik?" Tomlinson is saying in his high, nasally voice. They're standing a good few metres apart, like they're freaking gunslingers of something. Tomlinson even has his feet spread unnecessarily wide, like he's bracing for a real fight. "I mean, since you've apparently claimed this whole entire floor to your lonesome. Please tell is where your highness will allow us to practice."

This isn't going the way that he'd envisioned it going when he'd pushed his way out of the studio, full of righteous intent to tell these arseholes to bugger off. In his mind, he had confidently and cooly shut down Tomlinson and his gaggle of wannabes, chased them off with cold hard logic and scorching wit. Tomlinson would have scurried off with his tail between his legs, utterly humiliated and de-crowned in front of his idiotic minions. 

Somehow it hasn't gone quite so smoothly. Instead of being cowed into submission, Tomlinson has this manic grin on his weasely face, and a delighted spark in his beady eyes that has Zayn faltering and actually physically stepping back. "I...fuck I don't know, not here."

"Yeah I heard you the first time thanks." Tomlinson sneers, and behind him his little herd of sheep titter like he's said something hilarious. Zayn is more of the opinion that every word out of his thin lips is a waste of oxygen. "And it's still as useless to me. This is the _arts floor_ , we as performance _arts_ students have every right to use this space."

"These are the painting rooms." Zayn retorts, digging his nails into the flesh of his palm to resist the urge to strike out. "You have your own rooms. Use them."

"Our rooms are currently in use. Unlike these which, as far as I know, are supposed to be empty. What are you even doing in there that's so bloody important? Don't you have anything better to do than hide down here all by yourself?" 

"I- _fuck you_ I do!" Zayn snaps, hating how his voice strains and almost breaks. Seriously, fuck Tomlinson. Zayn has a perfectly good life with friends. If he wanted to go out he would; there's absolutely nothing wrong with wanting some quiet, quality alone time. Zayn is happy. "Not likes it's any of your fucking business."

"Ah ah!" Tomlinson flicks his ridiculous bangs in a way that he probably thinks looks attractive but in reality just makes him look like a complete tool. "The lady dost protest too much, methinks!" He crows, punctuated with a dramatic upward flourish, a positively shit-eating grin on his face. 

His posse loses it. _Oh look at Louis and his Shakespeare references so clever so funny so brilliant._ Zayn feels like puking. Instead he gathers his breath to deliver a biting response. What happens instead is a weak, "Shut up!"

The bastard laughs. He honest to god fucking throws his head back and _laughs in Zayn's face_. and the rest of them too, they laugh loud, freaking skinny hipsters in their tight jeans and neon braces, vintage shoes and 'quirky' beanies. They hoot and snicker like they're so much better than him because they drink tea without sugar and listen to Mozart or whatever bullshit is ‘unique’ right now.

Fuck them. _Fuck them_.

 

///

 

Harry is the best kind of friend. He doesn't say anything when Zayn stumbles into the apartment pale with rage, knuckles white around his blank canvas. Blank but for one ugly blemish. He just goes immediately to their closet of a kitchen to put the kettle on the stove. By the time Zayn comes back from stowing away his tool kit, shoving the canvas to the bottom of the stack where he won't have to look at it, Harry has a steaming mug of tea waiting, loaded with white sugar and thick cream just the way he likes. 

They sit and watch trashy telly for a while, even though both of them have ludicrous amounts of homework to do. Zayn lets himself sink into Harry's side, stress draining away in shakes and shivers. They don't talk because it's what Zayn needs and Harry, for all of his overgrown child tendencies, understands that without being told. 

Unfortunately Naill has never been quite so perceptive, and he whirls in halfway through a Bachlor rerun, head bopping with the too-loud music that's blaring through his earbuds. He air-guitars across the threshold, kicking his Supras against the wall for Harry to pick up and put in the shoe-rack later. "What's the haps roomies?" He yells over the music, "What're we sittin' in the dark for? Z-dawg, thought you were gonna stay late to do that cherry-scary thing or whatever the fuck thing you were all excited about this morning?"

"Chiaroscuro" Zayn corrects at the same time as Harry groans exasperatedly, " _Niall_."

"Wot?" The blond asks, yanking the buds out of his ears and shuffling further into the room on sock feet. It's obvious the moment he recognizes what program is playing, as comprehension sharpens his features and he blinks. "Oh." His eyes scan over Zayn's position huddled up under Harry's hideous afghan, the other boy's arm wound protectively around his shoulders. 

"Yeah. Oh." Zayn sighs, watching as Niall starts to rummage around in the pockets of his jeans. Then pats down the pouch of his oversized hoodie, and when he doesn't find whatever it is he's looking for, sticks his hand down his pants.

"Christ Ni." Harry mutters and their friend whoops in victory, pulling a rumpled looking chocolate bar from his waistband. "That's right dodgy that is."

"Sod off, wasn't like it was in me boxers." Niall pouts, wedging himself into the narrow space between the armrest and Zayn's ass. "Gotta keep me valuables secure like, away from those thriving bastards who call 'emselves music majors."

"Nobody wants your nasty knicker chocolate." Harry groans, face twisted in disgust. 

"Not true, Zaynie wants my nasty knicker chocolate, isn't that right babe?" Zayn eyes the bar critically. It looks more than a little squished, and Niall said that it hadn't been in his boxers but that could very well just be because half the time he forgets to even put on boxers, so. No guarantees. But on the other hand Harry's been on a health kick his month, and their snack selection right now consists of banana chips, cashews and these gross whole wheat crackers that taste like cardboard.

 Niall beams sunnily at him when he accepts the sweet, like he's made his whole day. Harry wrinkles his nose and shakes his head like a disappointed parent. Zayn doesn't really give a shit about his hippie dippie hang-ups. There's sweet gooey caramel melting on his tongue and the world is a better place.

They settle back into the show. It's not quiet like before, because Niall isn't good at quiet, but it's comfortable, Naill making raunchy comments about the girls and amusingly hypocritical comments about how douchey the guy is. Zayn can feel Harry's giggles where his head rests on his chest, and Niall has his feet warm in his lap. It's good, he feels loved, and the events of the day shrink into insignificance. 

"I ran away." He says during a commercial break, smiling children running around on the screen, blowing bubbles and cuddling puppies and...knitting socks? What is this even advertising? Anyways, Zayn turns his head to hide his face in Harry's shoulder. "I ran away like a little bitch. He basically made me his bitch without even trying. Didn't break a sweat."

"You don't have to tell us-" Harry starts, but Niall throws himself in Zayn's lap and says, "He, meaning that Tomlinson bloke yeah? It's Tomlinson again?"

Harry stops protesting "Course it's bloody Tomlinson." He says, voice going low and dangerous. "What'd he do this time Z?" 

It always throws Zayn, seeing Harry get mad. It's like a twitch flicks and he goes from mellow puppy to vicious...not so puppy. From baby labradoodle to six feet of full grown German shepherd. But in a protective way...a mama german shepherd, and nothing raises Harry's mama german shepherd hackles like Tomlinson...and he's never even met the guy. "You know, was his usual charming self. Mocked me, laughed at me, crapped all over my life. Same old song."

"Fucker." Niall supplies, rolling to smack a kiss to Zayn's knee. "Let's kill 'im."

"Nah, not worth it." Zayn smiles despite himself, scratching the dark roots peeking out from the bottle blond locks. "I refuse to go to jail over a twat like Tomlinson."

"No we can do it. No one'll suspect a thing. We'll cover our tracks...frame someone."

Zayn snorts, "Who would we frame?"

"That Styles kid." Niall stage-whispers without hesitation, reaching up to drag Zayn's head beside his. "Heard he's a real dafty, won't know what hit 'im."

"Oi." Harry drawls indignantly, kicking out a leg to jab Niall's shin where it rests on the coffee table. "Watch who you're insulting, there're shepherds pies sitting in the oven, and your share might just wind up in the bin."

"Sacrilege!" Niall bellows, wrapping his arms around his middle and thrashing about so violently that Zayn has no choice but to shove him off his lap and onto the floor. He immediately stretches out, taking up the vacated space with his legs. "Whatever Z." Niall sniffs from under the coffee table. "Stab me through the heart, see if I care." Then proceeds to army-crawl into the kitchen.

"I wish you'd let me talk to this guy." Harry says after the minute of silence that follows. His thumb rubs circles on Zayn's shoulder, tracing the inky snakes coils through the cotton of his Henley. "He can't keep treating you like this, making you feel like shit. 'S not right."

"Told you a million times H." Zayn murmurs, eyes in the television where the credits have started rolling. "You going in and playing diplomat won't solve anything. Neither will Niall roughing him up. I need to handle this on my own."

"Still wish you would though. Or at least tell the department head or someone. You don't always have to do things alone."

"Yeah well this is one thing I do." Zayn says firmly. And Harry, bless his heart, knows when to shut up.


	2. Harry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2 :) Let me know what you think.
> 
> Also just a note that I'm not British and this has not been brit-picked at all...and it most likely shows. I'm doing my best though!

It's a nice enough school for the most part. The main building is getting on in years, the one with the giant lecture halls and administrative offices. But from there the wings spread outward, getting progressively newer and better. Harry likes the upper floors best, the ones with walls made of glass that let sunshine and blue sky fill every nook and cranny with light and warmth. 

Harry's had a class on pretty much every floor of every building. It's what comes from being in third year and still not having declared a program. He's been using the decently sized inheritance from his late grandfather to play around in general studies, taking a little bit of everything, some biology, some mythology, some marketing, some social sciences. He knows that his father wants him do get a business degree like he had, knows that his mum and Robin support him in whatever he does but would prefer he goes into a practical, _relevant_ field. Gemma says he should drop out and join the circus.

So for now, he dapples in a bit of everything. Why limit himself? He reasons, in the earliest years, when he'll just have to narrow down and focus on one specific thing for the rest of his life. If he has to chose one thing to do for the next forty years, he's damn well going to make sure it's something he likes. 

And he's enjoying the ride immensely. He's living in the city with his best mate, and they'd met Niall early in first year. The Irish lad had been, hands down,  the best thing to come out of that first hellish month of homesickness and anxiety. His classes are interesting, the people he's meeting are fascinating, and his job at the cafe in the students union is fun and pays okay. It can get stressful and frantic during the rush shifts between nine and eleven, but his coworkers are cool. 

In three years at this institution, the only area of the school he hasn't had a class in is the basement, the Faculty of Fine Arts. Zayn had tried to get him to sign up for a painting class with him in their second semester, but Harry really doesn't believe his friend's insistence that "you don't even have to be good H, you just have to show up and do your best!"

Harry had plead out, citing his parents as the reason. If he took an art class, his father might actually disown him, and even his mum, as supportive as she’d try to be, would probablybe concerned. But the deciding factor - as awesome as it would be to take a class with Zayn, who's been in the fine arts degree program since day one - is the thought of taking a class down here fills him with an instant, bone-deep depression.

Harry worries pretty much constantly about Zayn, and how much time he spends in the basement. He says he loves it, that he feels peaceful there. Normally Harry will support anything that makes Zayn feel peaceful, so he doesn't voice his concerns, but he hates the basement. 

He just doesn't understand how people are supposed to create beautiful, inspired works down here. The walls are hideous off-white and look like they haven't been painted in a century, great grey patches of cement showing through where it's been chipped away. The floors are smeared with decades of unidentifiable spilled substances, the ceilings are low and the halls narrow. Harry can never quite breathe properly down here, it's so claustrophobic, and then he imagines all of the mildew and asbestos that must live in the walls and he wants nothing more than to turn and run back up the stairs.

But the absolute worst thing is the lack of life. There are no windows, no turnoffs into neat little courtyards, no reading nooks full of chatting students. There are ugly walls, an ugly floor, an ugly ceiling, and flickering, fluorescent lights. It feels like a dank, underground labyrinth, and Harry can't for the life of him find Zayn's painting classroom.

Zayn's taking enough self-directed courses this term that he really doesn't have to spend that much time in the actual studio, and at Harry and Niall's urging, is taking a quiet day at home. On the condition that Harry brings him his current project back to work on over the weekend. So here he is, at five-thirty in the evening, and at his wits end trying to find freaking room 049. 

You'd think the classrooms would organized in a straight-forward, numerical order like the rest of the school, but of course they aren't. Harry would like to know what it is about artistic types that allows them to get away with so much shit that the rest of the world never would. Like, he manages to find room 045, and thinks he must be close, only to come upon a bloody chain-link fence sitting straight through the hall.

It's an honest to god proper fence. There's a gate there, but it's sealed up tightly with a length of chain and a paint-splattered padlock. Harry hooks his fingers through the metal loops and stares in anguish at the door marked 049, illusive on the other side. 

He assumes that if he just hangs a right at the next turn, and then the two after it, he'll come in a full rectangle and reach his destination. Not so much. The halls keep spitting him back to the bottom of the stairs, like they've deemed him unworthy of staying and are trying to force him to give up and leave. But the image of Zayn's disappointed face if he were to return empty-handed keeps him going.

He would ask for directions...if there was anyone around. But it's the time of year when the sun seems to set at noon, and everyone with a brain does everything in their power not to have to journey home in the dark. He hasn't seen a single person in the twenty minutes he's been searching. So when he spots a figure all the way down at the end of a corridor, Harry rushes to catch him before he can disappear into a room, or a black hole or whatever other nonsense is down here. 

He calls out once before realizing that the guy has earbuds in. But he's not moving fast, and Harry easily catches up to him. He slows to a stop at the point where his hallway widens to join another. There's a pair of hulking vending machines and an uncomfortable looking bench tucked into the corner like an afterthought. The guy has stopped in front of the beverage machine, but doesn't seem intent on purchasing anything. He's got his eyes closed, mouthing along to words only he can hear and, as Harry watches, performs a series of energetic dance steps across the small space, right into Harry's chest. 

The guy's eyes fly open and Harry's hands dart to steady him. There's a long moment of awkward breathing in each other's space and staring, until the guy quirks a brow and says, "Yippity boom da boom indeed."

Happy blinks. "Pardon?"

"Never you mind." The guys grins, tugging his ear-buds out and stuffing them into the pocket of his slouchy black joggers. "Sorry 'bout that, got a bit too involved in meself. Y'alright?"

"Don't worry 'bout it." Harry replies with a smile to match this stranger's contagious cheer. He finds himself a bit fascinated by energy this guy is giving off; he's like a ray of light bundled into a short, compact form _. Beautiful_ Harry can't help but think, dazzled by the white of his teeth against honey-tanned skin. His hair is golden brown too, slightly frizzy under a cream-coloured beanie, and his blue eyes scatter light like a pool of clear water. "'M not that delicate."

"Offensive! You saying I couldn't do some damage? I'll have you know good sir, I am a _professional_ damage-doer."

"I don't doubt it." Harry says, the words coming out far more innuendo-laden than he'd intended. As a rule, Harry doesn't usually hit on guys before he's exchanged more than a few sentences. Potentially dangerous gamble that. Luckily he appears to have read the signs correctly, and the other boy's smirk grows interested edges. 

"Bloody right." He declares, tugging at the hem of his rust-orange jumper - a colour that Harry had never imagined looking quite so becoming on anyone - so that it better emphasizes his collarbones, exposing the edge of what looks like inked letters. "Good of you to smarten up curly."

"Harry." Says Harry, although he doesn't entirely mind the moniker. Not when it comes in a creaky lilt of a voice attached to a pair of lovely, pale pink lips. But it would sound even better saying his real name. "M'names Harry."

"And I'm Louis." Says Louis. He holds out his hand for a proper handshake. The sleeves of his sweater are rolled up over themselves, pushed halfway up his forearms to reveal the dainty knobs of his wrists, the dark hint of another tattoo. Harry accepts the gesture happily, noting idly how nicely Louis' slim fingers fit in his. "Something tells me you aren't from around here Harry."

"That a pickup line?" Harry laughs, because the vibe he's getting from Louis is a comfortably playful one, and Harry's not going to turn down a bit of flirtation with one of the prettiest boys he's seen in ages. 

"Please, if I was trying to pick you up, your kit would already be on the floor." Louis huffs, but his eyes are still sparkling, the skin at the edges crinkling, his long lashes tangled. "It was a serious question. Like, you look lost, but I just met you so I don't know, maybe it's just how your face always looks."

"Probably both." Harry admits with a shrug. Hey, people have said worse. "I'm looking for the painting studio...049? Keep gettin' turned around. 'Ve passed by this spot like, ten times it feels like."

"Ah! Another interloper fallen prey to the floor plan of fire and brimstone. Don't worry Harold, many a better man has tried and failed."

Harry wonders if it would be too much to shove at Louis and giggle coquettishly. Yeah, definitely. Might as well throw in a simper and a swoon as well. He settles on crossing his arms because it's clinically proven to make his biceps look fantastic. "First you insult my face, now you impute my manhood. And here I thought we were _connecting_."

"I'll be willing to make a more thorough assessment of your manhood at a later day. For the sake of science." Louis says smoothly. "As for your face, maybe I like the hopelessly lost and confused thing you've got going on, don't judge my preferences."

"It's just because I don't know my way 'round this place. 'S like a maze down here! But don't worry, I actually know my way 'round most other places." If Louis isn't going to be subtle about his entendre, than neither is Harry. He lets his voice drop even deeper and slower on the last two words. 

"Oh yeah?" Louis jumps on the bait eagerly, eyes gleaming. "What kind of places Harry?"

"Oh you know," he replies with a shrug and an impish grin. "The usual. Kitchens, groceries, zoos."

"Ah yes, precisely what I was thinking, of course."

"Of course."

"But since we've established that you do not know your way around these here parts, I will grace you with my superior knowledge. Studio 49 you said?"

"Cheers, yeah." Harry says, real relief thick in his tone because he really doesn't feel up to another half hour of bumbling in circles by himself, but also because he's enjoying his new acquaintance immensely and would very much like to spend more time with him. "Although I'm beginning to think the place doesn't actually exist." He adds, leaning closer to Louis conspiratorially, "Might just be chasing a myth."

"It's not a myth, but it is illusive." Louis says, reaching to tug at the strap of Harry's messenger bag, starting back the way they'd come. Harry is happy to drift after him, taking the chance to peek down the length of his body. He bites his lip hard to keep his smile reigned back to a sane degree. Louis' joggers are loose and billowy around his knees and calves, but deliciously tight at his thighs and arse. He's also not wearing socks, and Harry finds the view of his bare heels in his trampled down vans worryingly adorable. 

"They lock up the studio wing when there're no classes on 'coz there's apparently like, a million quid worth of supplies in there of something." Louis is explaining as he leads them along a hallway that Harry's been down about a dozen times already. He glances back over his shoulder and does a little eyebrow wiggle when their eyes meet. If Harry doesn't at least get a phone number out of this he's a failure for life. "But you've just gotta find the back door."

They've come to the hall with the fence, and Louis jiggles open door 046 and motions Harry through. It's a small, dim room full of stacked chairs, tables and a few ancient black-boards. It smells overwhelmingly of chalk dust. But Louis heads straight to a door on the adjacent wall and then they're in a room full of shelves of ceramic figures in various stages of completion. "And voila!" Louis says, throwing open one last door and they emerge on the other side of the fence, directly across from 049. 

"Blessed is the day I met you, Louis who knows his way 'round back doors." Harry says reverently, making grabby hands for the long-sought room. The studio is lit by a single row of display lights that illuminate a row of landscapes on one of the walls, and Harry goes immediately to the student cubbies in the corner, searching for the one with **Malik** scrawled on a strip of masking tape. 

Louis follows him in, but meanders in the other direction to examine the towering bookshelf of supplies. "They have like, every colour of glitter ever made." He whispers in awe, "It's like grade school all over again but pumped full of steroids."

Harry flicks through the half-dozen works Zayn's cubby, looking for the piece that his friend had described as being an oil painting of a spring day. There's nothing that Harry would describe as such, so he grabs a canvas that's got lots of soft, warm colours and a dappled pattern that inspires a sort of spring-like _feeling_ , and wrestles it into the dark green garbage-bag that Zayn had insisted he bring for transport, despite the fact that it'd been clear and sunny that morning.

"Well, I personally loved grade school, glitter and cayons and...blocks. Where do I sign up?" Harry sidles up behind the other boy, wrapped canvas tucked securely in his armpit. There _is_ an awfully large number of sparkly jars for a university. Zayn's been holding out on him. 

"Got what you came for then?" Louis asks, "Recuperated enough for the return trek?"

"Believe so." Harry makes a show of stretching out his hamstrings and rotating the socket of his free arm. 

"Marvelous. Tally-hoe then laddy." They head back out, retracing their steps in reverse. They linger in the ceramics room briefly, when Louis spots what is probably meant to be a candle holder, but looks far too phallic to be a coincidence, and spend a few minutes cackling over that like pre-teen boys. "You heading out then?" Louis asks once they leave the fenced off zone behind. Strolling side by-side, the narrowness of the hall means that their elbows inevitably brush every few steps. 

"That's the plan." Harry agrees, tapping the corner of the canvas with two fingers. "Got a delivery to make and more homework waiting for me than I want to talk about."

"Fucking November." Louis acknowledges with sympathy. "Hey, hold on a mo' while I grab my shit and I'll walk out with you." He turns into a battered door hung with an alarmingly official looking sign that reads **Enter at own risk: the department will not be held accountable for any injury, emotional trauma, or death experienced past this point**. There are half a dozen cartoon penises drawn around the words in a variety of different styles and colours. 

Ignoring the ominous message, Harry follows Louis into the room. Unlike in the rest of the basement, here his eyes are met with an explosion of colour. It's a large, open classroom that's been converted into a sort of lounge area. Every square-centimetre of wall is covered with the randomest array of posters; in just one glance Harry spots a kitten in a hammock, the Spice Girls, Cristiano Ronaldo’s Wold Cup spread from Vanity Fair, and a tourism advert for Arkansas of all places. 

"They won't let us paint." Louis explains, traipsing across the mis-matched rugs layered over the large clear space in the middle of the room. "And the walls are just too ugly to stand so we fixed it. My idea. The ceiling too." There are flags hung to block out the open pipes and ventilation shafts, a Union Jack, rainbow flag, and a Man United pendant included. 

"I like it." Harry says honestly, beaming at the giant, framed portrait of William Shakespeare that dominates one wall. "It doesn't feel like school, it feels like, I dunno, a lads den."

Louis snorts, "Switching the words doesn't mean you didn't just call this a man-cave. I am judging you." He stoops by a tie-dye bean bag and pulls a brown leather rucksack out from behind it, along with a light denim jacket with fleece lining. "But doucheisms aside, that is what we were going for. But a man-cave with class, see?" He fiddles with a couple light switches, plunging them into darkness for a second before a strand of fairy-lights flickers on, bathing the space in warm gold. "Mood lighting. Classy as fuck."

"Consider me impressed." Harry says earnestly. He really is; this beautiful, funny boy has managed to transform this room into a place that Harry thinks he could enjoy spending time in. There's a squat shelf full of books in the corner, cozy looking sofas draped in fluffy blankets, a crappy school-issued television on a rolling cart behind the door, even a mini-fridge humming away, plastered thickly with bumper stickers.

"Well hallelujah that's all I wanted from life, really." Louis crows, shatteringly loud in the empty room. "It's what I was going for when I was decorating you know, thought to myself, _Lou old boy, one day a curly haired string-bean is gonna crash into you by the soda machine and your entire future will rest on his opinion of the green room. Better do it right!_ " despite the sarcasm, Louis' smile is as light and friendly as ever. 

"As I recall, _you_ crashed into _me_." Harry hums, watching Louis shrug the denim over his arms, the smooth motion pulling the wool of his jumper taught, outlining the narrow silhouette of his torso. 

"Sematics." Louis waves his hand flippantly, straightening his beanie in a mirror hung on the door of a cupboard. There's one of those 50s housewife magnets stuck in the corner that reads, **Don't hate me because I'm beautiful, hate me because I'm a bitch.**

"I think you mean semantics." Harry suggests. 

The other boy sticks his tongue out at Harry by way of his reflection before shouldering his bag and switching off the lights, plunging them into darkness save for the thin beam of leaking in from the hall. Harry's vision goes spotty for a moment while his eyes adjust to the shift, and Louis' voice unexpectedly close in his ear makes his heart miss a beat. "Potato tomato blah blah fruits and veg blah. Wot, you an English major or summit?"

"Nah, ' still undeclared." Sharp fingers jab at Harry's side, spurring him towards the door. "Did take Linguistics last term though. Must've learned something."

They emerge into the light, and Louis shuts the door behind them, locking it with a little bronze key that's attached to a football charm. "What about you then?" Harry asks, "What program are you in that lets you make-over classrooms and gives you the keys? Seems a bit unfair really."

"My devine calling, you poor, jealous sod, is the world of _thea-tah_." Louis declares grandly. "Could you not tell from the decore?"

"Had a hunch. That row of actors on the clothes-line...all of the Macbeths?"

"Of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, yes. Good eye."

"Sir Ian was the key. Have a bit of a gentlemanly crush on him to be honest."

Louis nods solemnly "Who doesn't. Crazy people, that's who."

They reach the central staircase, and Harry hefts his package more securely in his arms. "Exactly." He says, matching Louis step-for-step, "Noticed you have McAvoy up there twice. You counting that cooking one then?"

"Hey, the Re-tolds were bril and I won't have anyone saying otherwise." Louis counters, sounding enduringly short of breath as they reach ground level and make their way into the mostly deserted lobby.

"Oh I see how it is." Harry grins as they head across the terracotta tiles to the massive front doors, the blackness outside turning the glass into a giant mirror. Harry watches their reflections move together and thinks they make a rather handsome pair. "No room for any opinion but your own. You're a theatre _tyrant_."

"'S what happens when one is always right about everything." Louis sniffs, smacking the automatic door button, although they're old and slow and they have to wait a long moment for them to creak open. It probably would have been quicker to just open the thing manually. "What can I say, It's a tough life but it's my life and no one else's gonna live it."

Harry's still giggling like an imbecile when they emerge into the frigid November night, but his laughter cuts off with a startled inhale when he's hit with a face-full of sleet. " _Oh god_ " Louis gasps from beside him. "Abort abort abort, retreat go _now_." And they clutch each other and trip over themselves in their haste to escape the virtual blizzard that's apparently cropped up out of nowhere.

"What the hell?" Harry gapes once they're safely back behind solid glass, illogically soaked from a measly three seconds outside. "It was nice out just two hours ago! What happened?"

"I feel like that all the time." Louis says, wiping moisture from his lovely cheeks with the edge of his sleeve. "Try spending three classes down there. No windows, no skylights, I never know what to expect when I come up. Anything could've happened, a typhoon, the apocalypse, there'd be no way to know."

"Like coming out of a movie and it's still light!" Harry exclaims, shaking an improbable amount of water off of the plastic-wrapped painting. Good thing Zayn had been so adamant about bringing the bag or the thing would be ruined. "Or taking a nap in the middle of the day and waking up to find you've missed tea."

"...sure." Louis blinks from under his wilted hair. He still looks unrealistically good. "I don't suppose you've got a car?"

Ha. Harry can't even afford to get the chain for his bicycle repaired. "Sorry."

"Yeah neither do I." Louis sighs, staring despairingly at the whirling mess outside for a bit longer before shaking himself. "Well, I'm sure as hell not walking to the depot in that. Fancy a cuppa in the U?"

Harry hadn't even brought a jacket today, it had been sunny for gods sake, so "Yeah. Sounds good." And trails after the other boy back across the floor, through the catwalk that overlooks the gymnasiums, and into the biggest of the student lounges. Louis slings his bag onto a foot-rest and heads straight for the back sink, where he fills up one of the electric kettles with a practiced hand. "So I have Yorkshire original, Yorkshire Gold, and some Yorkshire spiced left from last Christmas."

"Wow some impressive variety there Lou." Harry says sarcastically, flopping down heavily into an armchair after resting Zayn's parcel carefully against the side. A minute later he wonders if using a nickname for someone he's known for under an hour is strange, but dismisses the thought. They're totally vibing, more so than anyone Harry's ever met, which is saying something considering he and Niall were farting in each other’s company by the end of day one.

"Got something against Yorkshire Harry?" Louis growls, sharp little teeth bared from where he's leant up against the counter, elbows supporting his weight behind him. 

"Not at all." Harry soothes, "Love it. _'Like tea used to be'_ and all that. I'd love some original please." He grins in the way he knows makes his dimples pop and his eyes shine. He's rewarded with a slight flush of his companion's cheeks. 

"Fine. I 'spose you can have some, even if you are an uncultured heathen." The kettle starts it's high-pitched groan so Louis turns back around and unplugs it from the wall. He shuffles over and digs a slightly bent styrofoam cup out of his pack, and extracts a ziplock baggy stuffed with an insane volume of tea bags. "Just got the one cup, so we'll have to share. You're not sick are you?"

"Not yet praise be." Harry answers, leaning immediately to rap his knuckles against the wooden end table. Through a complex regime of bikram yoga, all-natural vitamins and a strict nutrient-rich diet, he’s managed to survive this far into flu season without succumbing to the plague that’s been revenging the student population. Sharing drinks with strangers probably isn’t the most logical move if he wants to continue his stellar health streak, but Harry is well-known for doing foolish things for pretty people.

"Right, how do you take it?" Louis pours the water over the bag, aromatic steam quickly spreading the delicious scent through the room. 

"However you do is fine." Harry stretches his legs out, pointing his toes and arching out of the chair to pop his back out satisfyingly. Louis drops into the seat beside him and passes him the cup. "Ta."

Harry blows on the hot beverage while Louis settles into his chair, throwing off his jacket and extracting his feet from his shoes to sit crossed-legged. The back of his checkered vans remain folded down in the imprint of the boy's heels. "Ooh hey, Bake Off's on. Love it."

"Mary's a doll." Harry comments absently, taking a tentative sip of the tea, lip curling at the sharp burn. "What series is it?"

"Third." Louis responds without hesitation. "They're doing biscuits so it'll be episode eight. Cathy's going home."

Harry gapes at Louis' profile. This boy can't be real, it's just not possible. Harry actually pinches the skin between his thumb and forefinger - right below the cross - just to check. "My favourite day is the pies." He says, hoping that he doesn't sound as love struck as he feels. "I have this secret fantasy see, to go on and compete. Bake myself to national fame. But in reality I'd probably just end up making cupcakes every day."

"You could get away with that for a while." Louis murmurs thoughtfully. "There's cake day, pastries, general desserts, you might be able to stretch it to pies..."

Harry hides his smile in the cup. The tea is still too hot and doesn't have sugar in it, more bitter than Harry takes his, but by now he's rather beyond the point of caring.   
  
  


///

 

It's almost eight-thirty when Harry gets in. The living room is empty and dark, and the kitchen is deserted too, although the lights are on and there are three PizzaExpress boxes out on the counter. Harry peeks into the top box and quickly moves on, as it's Zayn's Diavolo, and he's not in the mood to burn his taste buds off thank you. The next box is Niall's greasy, cheese-slathered Etna, all but demolished save for one tiny sliver which Harry transfers onto a plate and covers with saran-wrap. The last box is Harry's thin-crust veggie Veneziana with anchovies, which is pristine and untouched because anchovies might be the only food Niall doesn't eat, and Zayn's face goes green whenever Harry so much as mentions them. 

He grabs two of the lukewarm pieces and then wedges the rest of the leftover into the fridge. Stacking the slices in one hand, he wanders down the hall. Niall's door is closed, the whiteboard tacked to the paneling reads, **Cramming - Enter and Taste the Irish Fury**. Harry nibbles on the end of his pizza sandwich and moves onto Zayn's room, which sits ajar.

"Honey I'm ho-ome." He sings softly, shuffling into the room. It's dark except for the harsh glow of Zayn's laptop, open to a skype feed. "Doni dah-link!" He exclaims, perching beside Zayn's sprawled form. 

"'Arreh my dove!" Doniya purrs back from the screen, wiggling her fingers in a silly wave. "It's been far too long since I've seen your sexy face."

"Indeed, indeed! These past three days have been torture baby."

Zayn buries his face in his hands "Oh god I hate you both." He's dressed for a day in, grey sweats under a baggy black hoodie that's got ragged holes where his thumbs stick through. He's showered at least, but let his hair air-dry without product, so it's soft and limp against his forehead, long enough to brush the thick frames of his glasses. 

In contrast, Doniya looks very put together. It's always a relief when she attends their weekly skype check-ins out of her pajamas, hair brushed and a smile on her face. Her dark brown hair even looks like she's put in the effort with a straight-iron, and although it's hard to really tell with the pixelation, Harry thinks he can see a touch of makeup in her face. 

"Shove off Z-lame, I'm trying to talk to my favourite little brother here." Doniya grins, waving an arm heavy with leather bracelets to shoo Zayn out of the screen and give Harry more room. "So Harry, what's new in your life? Zayn's always so boring I need some juicy drama to get by. You know I live vicariously through you twits so give me something good."

Harry thinks about the two and a half hours that he'd just spent with the hottest, funniest boy he's ever met, about the way they'd clicked so unmistakably. He thinks about the new contact sitting in his cell that Louis had put in, grabbing the phone from Harry's hands and typing in his own information, saving the number under **HRH Louis, Supreme Overlord of the Basement**. Then he'd held the phone at arms-length to take a ridiculous selfie, making an exaggerated duck-face with bulging cheeks and crossed eyes, saving it as the contact icon. Harry wonders how creepy it would be if he made it his lock-screen.

Harry thinks about telling Doniya about Louis and how he hasn't had a crush this sudden or intense since highschool. But then glances sideways at Zayn and he thinks about the girl tattooed on his friend’s arm, the engagement ring that still sits in the bottom drawer of his desk, about how he still, three months later, crawls into Harry's bed some nights because he can't stand how lonely he is.

"Well, did Z tell you that Niall bought a chinchilla?" He asks instead, wriggling around so that he's lying pressed against his friend's side. "Named the thing Patty. Had a giant cage set up in the living room when we got home and everything. You know how hard it is to get a full refund for an animal?"

After chatting away a bit about classes and the nonsensical daily going-ons of life in their household of three, Harry leaves the siblings alone. He knows how much Zayn depends on these windows of contact with his sister, as well as how much Doniya looks forward to the brightness of their talks amidst her dreary, structured life in the centre. 

Harry heads to his own room and shucks off his flannel shirt and vest, then lying down on the bed to do battle with his skinnies. Once they lie properly defeated in the hamper at the foot of the bed, he stretches out in his undies, popping the day out of his spine with a sigh of satisfaction. Eyes closed, he focuses his breathing, (the Pranayama classes he's taken as a desperate last-ditch attempt to deal with the stress back in first year had revolutionized how he copes during finals season) and relaxes into the mattress. He can hear Zayn's voice rising and falling through their shared wall, but can't make out the words. 

This is the longest period Doniya has been in the centre. She'd been doing well in out-patient support...or at least they'd thought she had been, that her relapse six months ago had taken them all completely by surprise. It had been amongst the heartbreak and stress in the weeks following that Zayn's four year relationship with Perrie had fallen apart. 

Harry moans and throws his arm over his eyes. There's nothing that distresses him more than the people he loves being unhappy. And right now it feels like everyone is unhappy. Everyone but Niall. Blessed be for Niall, he keeps Harry's faith in an uncomplicated life alive.

His phone buzzes. He abandons his breathing and sits up to swipe it off his end table, lips parting in a giddy smile when he sees the name on the screen. 

 

 

 

Harry bites the ink on his bicep to stifle the squeal that's stuck in his throat. At least for him, there’s a bright light on the horizon. Things are looking up.


	3. Louis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just felt like I should add a mild warning that this story (especially upcoming chapters) deals with alcohol and drug abuse, and a few characters deal with anxiety and self-esteem issues.
> 
> Let me know what you think!

So Louis is a very passionate individual, okay? He knows this about himself. He's accepted this about himself. He's embraced this.

Louis might be in love with a boy named Harry.

He thinks he managed to play it cool. He is an actor after all, and even though he was dying to grab Harry by the shoulders and beg him to marry him after he'd correctly connected Louis' little Macbeth shrine, he was able to keep his shit together and pretend that he isn't loopy over a kid he's known for less than a day. Because Louis is just _that good_.

When he gets home though, all bets are off and he falls face-first into the couch to wail his joy to the cushions.

"Bitch ass _motherfucker!_ " Stan yelps, jerking upright from where he'd been mouth open and snoring in the loveseat, his art history notes spilling onto the floor. "Warn a chap before you do that, gave me a bloody heart attack."

"Fuck off you're fine." Louis replies cheerfully, squirming around to grapple for his phone, trapped in his front pocket. "Stanley, what is the appropriate amount of time to know someone before it's socially acceptable to proposition them?"

"Oooh oh who're we boning this time? Is it that new transfer student? Aldo or whatever? 'Coz I don't think I could handle dating a dude who's name is a shoe store. " Stan exclaims, clapping his hands together in anticipation. Louis' friend circle is really, disturbingly close and invested in each others' lives. Free love and all that jazz. Whatever.

"You wouldn't know him. He's not in the program. And don't talk like my relationships are your relationships. That's not how this works and it's creepy."

"It's basically exactly how this works Tommo don't even try to fight me on this. And what do you mean not in the program?" Stan's beloved, ugly mug is twisted in confusion. Louis can't even blame him, it's very rare - read: never happens- for any of them to go for people who aren't with the drama department. It's just that it takes a very special sort of person to be able to spend any amount of time with them and not run screaming in the other direction.

"I mean he's not in the program you arse-hat. There isn't actually a rule that says we are only allowed to date other actors."

"I know...but." Stan is trying to do puppy eyes, but he just doesn't quite have the features to pull them off. "Louis. The _system_. You can't mess with the system."

Okay, so the system refers to the habit that the theatre kids have of casually sleeping with each other. Like, it's gotten so ridiculous and predictable that they call it 'the system' and treat hook-ups like business transactions. Except without the exchange of goods or money because yeah, not prostitutes. But they _negotiate_ and it's casual and actually remarkably efficient, if you can look past how bizarre and incestuous it is. It's just what comes from spending so many hours with the same, mostly attractive people doing very physical, emotionally intensive activities. Hormones soar, boners are popped, things happen.

It's actually a great system. They're all friends and they're all satisfied, and more often than not when two of them actually want to seriously date, they are still open and relaxed and it's not awkward when they break up. But that's the thing...they always break up.

Louis tried it in his first semester. He had been leery to approach the weird casual inter-dating pool that that other students had going on, and so had Eleanor, so they'd decided to try to be exclusive for all of three weeks. Then El had gotten drunk at a party and slept with Max, and then Louis had gotten spectacularly stoned at a different party and also slept with Max, and then they had all shrugged and had a threesome while they were dead sober. Because that's just how things worked in the drama department. No one can beat the system.

But here lies problem; Louis is secretly a hopeless romantic and wants a steady, exclusive, serious, marriage bound, forever relationship more than anything in the world. He'd already had his period of experimentation, in the gap-year turned extended to four  years of gallivanting between London and Doncaster. He'd done the strings on not strings one night stands, the clubbing every weekend and going home with strangers. And now that life has kicked his arse and he's gotten his shit together enough to give school another shot, he's kind of over it.

So this Harry bloke shows up out of nowhere, while Louis is trying to nail the bit for 'We Go Together', and it's like fate basically. Louis just looks up from the deliciously firm chest he's shoo-bopped into and is greeted with the yummiest looking pair of plump red lips he's had the pleasure of encountering, kind, moss green eyes and dimples that probably lead to lost worlds. He's hot, is the bottom line, in an unconventional enough way that Louis wants to sit him down and stare at him for hours.

And fuck it he's adorable. He's got this slow, deep voice that would make every story he tells sound rambling even if it was a recount of a diamond heist or something, he'd been wearing ankle boots that were more duct tape than leather, he'd seemed to know at least a bit about the world of dramatic arts, had been able to list every contestant from the most recent two series of the Great British Bake Off, and the screensaver of his phone - before Louis changed it to one of shirtless Jared Padalecki - was of him holding an angelic blonde toddler, wearing matching princess tiaras. Somehow this guy manages to push all of Louis' buttons at once, plus some that he hadn't known he had.

Louis had wanted to get down on his knees and beg him to run away and adopt a brood of babies with him, brangelina style. But Stan doesn't need to know that part.

"Fuck the system." He says instead, making a mean face and throwing up a few gang-signs to emphasis his point. Stan can't _not_ return the gestures with a few idiotic wrist snaps of his own, chin jutting out in a way that is less thug and more gorilla. Tim chooses that moment to wander in and get roped into the G-off which morphs into a demented white boy rap battle.

Roommates effectively distracted, Louis shoots off a quick, inane text to Harry. He winces seconds later, and turns to suffocate himself with a pillow. Why _cupcakes_ of all things, why not something cool and mysterious? Stupid Louis, _stupid_.

But his phone pings with a reply under a minute later anyways so, it doesn't really matter does it.

 

///

 

It's eight in the morning when he leaves the apartment. It's clear once again, the clouds Friday evening having dissipated over the weekend, leaving behind a thin layer of slush. It's early enough that the world is still pretty dim, the barest finger of pink streaking the sky. Despite the fact that the temperature is in the negatives and the hour is ungodly, Louis is feeling good.

He and Harry had stayed up texting last night until later than is generally recommendable when one has a class first thing in the morning. Louis is feeling the lack of sleep in the dizzy, unfocused bubble in the space behind his eyes and the heavy weight of him limbs. He'd drunk half his tea too fast trying to force some energy into his body and his tongue is still smarting even as he boards the crammed bus. It's standing room only as per usual, and Louis is barely in the door, wallet open to display his student pass to the disinterested driver, before the bus lurches forward. He staggers down the aisle, squeaking apologies to the people he treads on.

All of the seats are taken, as Louis' building is pretty close to the main campus, and there are enough people lining the windows that Louis can't reach any of the rails. He curses internally and does his best to brace his feet against the rocky movements of the bus. And this driver isn't helping one bit, apparently never having learned that curbs are not meant to be driven over.

"Louis?" A voice calls from somewhere down the aisle, and he cranes his neck in time to see Harry vacating the seat he'd been perching on, much to the delight of the girl standing closest, who darts to claim the coveted spot. "Hey." The curly-haired boy beams, maneuvering his way unsteadily through the crowd. "Thought it was you."

"Morning Harold." Louis says, trying not to look too pleased with this development. "That was a right dumb move back there, giving up your seat. Didn't you know it's basically a roller-coaster up here?"

"I can handle it." Harry answers confidently, reaching out with one indecently long arm to grab hold of a bar that had been out of Louis reach. "Company's worth a bit o' jostle."

It's at about this point that Louis gives up trying to disguise how fond he's becoming of this boy. His cheeks were starting to hurt from the strain of holding back smiles, so he just gives in and grins the whole ride to school.

Fifteen minutes with Harry proves more a more effective energy boost than all the tea in the world, and after they part ways in the lobby, there's an undeniable spring in Louis' step. He hops down the stairs, taking two at a time, and does a happy twirl on the landing. Both of them finish up at twelve thirty, and they'd agreed to meet up for lunch after their classes. It's obviously (in Louis’ mind) a date and his spirits are flying high as he bounds to his Movement class. It shows in the group workshop, he's always good but today he's _great_ , receiving pleased praise from the professor and glowing admiration from his classmates. Louis basks in the attention.

They're let out twenty minutes early, it's ten o'clock in the morning and it's already a great day. He heads to the heart of the basement, a bare lounge with an ugly wooden ticket counter built into one wall, and uncomfortable metal benches clustered awkwardly to one side. He skips across the space to the wall-sized bulletin board and zeros in on this week’s studio schedule. There's a block of time on Thursday night that he's got his eye on, it's one of the only times the whole cast is free and they desperately need the practice time, as opening night is now less than a month away.

The schedule goes up every Monday morning, and it's generally full by mind afternoon. People know though, that the drama club has unspoken dibs on the auditorium once a week, so Louis hand freezes in shock where he'd been rummaging in his bag for a pen, his eyes widening as he reads in the words scrawled on the paper. **Thursday 6:30-8:20: Z Malik.**

" _He didn't_." Louis breathes through his teeth, good mood dissolving at the mere sight of the name. "That bloody stuck up arse!"

He's moving before he really thinks it through, striding through the winding halls, through the unlocked gate and into the studio that, just days before, he'd brought a lovely boy. Malik is there of course, he's bloody always there, still has his jacket on, nose pink from outside. "Oi!" Louis snarls from the door, and Malik's head snaps up from where he's arranging what looks like a pile of rubbish on a model stand. "Who do you think you are?"

The boy's face is carefully blank as he straightens to his full height - only a tiny bit taller than Louis - and assumes a careless stance leant against a nearby easel. "What forgot my name have you?" He drawls, eyes dark and hard. "After all we've been through Tomlinson I'm hurt."

"Ha fucking ha." Louis snaps, "Don't play dumb you git, you stole my slot!"

"Oh. That." The even expression on his swarthy face makes it clear that he'd known from the start what this was about. " _Stole_ is quite a strong word there mate, you sure it's the one you want to use?"

"Yes I'm sure _mate_." Louis bites back. The tips of his fingers have gone numb. He hates getting like this, hates being angry, but this infuriating guy never fails to antagonize him to the point where the blood roars in his ears and he loses control of his mouth. For as long as he can remember, when Louis feels attacked he's responded by giving as good as he gets. "Everyone knows we get the theatre on Thursdays."

"Oh really? I'm pretty sure the space goes to whoever reserves it. It's _my_ name there Tomlinson, so I get to use it."

"But what do you even need it for?" Louis demands, stalking further into the room to shove up in the other boys face. Malik flinches minutely but stands his ground, leather-clad arms crossed between them.

"Not that it's any of your business, but I've got my final value project coming up. The auditorium has the best lighting."

"A painting. You need the entire theatre for one little painting." Louis glares in disbelief. "You can't be serious."

"Well it's not exactly a little painting. It's rather large actually, fifty by seventy."

"That's still small enough to fit in here!" Louis exclaims in exasperation, "Do you even know how much you're screwing me over here? I have a production to run in three weeks and not a single one of my actors is even off book yet! My Rizzo is out with mono and her understudy is frighteningly unprepared, nobody knows their cues and we have yet to nail a single scene! _I need that slot!_ "

"That's really too bad for you, 'cause see, the auditorium is open for anyone in the fine arts department and, you, know, as a visual _arts_ student I have every right to use the space." Malik smirks, looking chuffed as anything to have parroted Louis' own words from their last little spat right back at him.

Louis is pissed off as all hell because he's right. Anyone can book time in the communal spaces as long as they're using them for academic purposes. It's first come first served, and Louis has been _served_ in a properly different way. "What's your angle Malik?" He grits, edging closer to level the dark boy with the dirtiest glare he can manage. "Does it make you feel good, sabotaging my play? Feel like a big man because you're fucking with our careers? Well you know what, it's pathetic!"

"Sabotage? Wow you really do think highly of yourself don't you!" Some of the smugness in Malik's face falls away, and his black brows draw in tight. "Not every little move everyone makes is centred around you, you know. You're not as hot shit as you think you are."

"Oh I know not everyone's is, but you, yeah, it really seems like it." Louis feels steadier now, like he has the upper hand. His mouth is still running ahead of his brain, but that's just business as usual and he'll deal with the guilt and regret later. "I mean, you must've gotten here real early to make sure you beat me to the sign up yeah? Bit obsessive from where I'm standing."

"From where you're standing? Oh yeah? I can see how easy it must be to delude yourself from way up on that fucking pedestal you've got yourself on."

"Oh bloody come off it you dick, you've had it out for me since day one don't even try to deny it." Louis sneers, prodding the other boy's chest with his finger. "I don't know what your problem is but your freaky little vendetta isn't _cute_ it's just _sad_. Get a life and stop messing with mine."

Malik's face twists and he slaps Louis hand away. "Don't fucking touch me!" Louis takes a step back in surprise, hand stinging  sharply. In all their ridiculous pissing matches, they've never actually deteriorated to physical blows. "You want to know why I have a problem with you?" Malik bursts, dark eyes wild with agitation.

"Yes! For god’s sake please share!" Louis all but yells back, throwing his hands up. "Because you've been picking these fights since I got here, for reasons I really can't discern. Please enlighten me to what I've done wrong."

" _Gladly_." Malik snarls. "I don't like you. I don't like you because you're an obnoxious, entitled brat. Everyone thinks you're so fucking great and worldly because you lived in _London_ and think that means you've got all this _experience_ and shit. But I can see what it really means, I know  what it means. You're just another fucking highschool dropout aren't you, couldn't be assed to finish his A levels before you fucked off to the city to _make it big_ , and when you realized that you're actually mediocre, you went running back to mummy and daddy. And you finally get a clue and that you have to go to school like the rest of us, you come here like you're so much better than everyone. Like, I'm sabotaging _your_ play, shafting _your_ rehearsal time. God you're the most selfish prick I've ever met! Some of those people have been here for four years and you barge in and start taking all the leads and telling everyone what to do and that fucking ridiculous disaster of a room. I don't know what makes you think it's okay to lord it up over those poor saps, but it's disgusting. You disgust me!"

There's a period of silence, in which Malik pants for breath a little, Louis gapes and struggles to hide the fact that some of those words actually hurt quite a lot, and they both ignore the small audience that has gathered as people trickle in to set up for class.

"Those 'poor saps'," Louis says after a minute, "are my friends." He balls his fists and sticks them under his arms to hide that he's shaking with emotions. "I know that's an alien concept to you, but most people actually like me. I try out for my parts, same as everyone, and they _ask_ me for my opinion on things because I'm actually pretty good at what I do. You're so judgmental and you don't even know a damn thing about me so you can fuck right off. _God no wonder_ you're always alone down here, you're a genuine asshole aren't you? It's not _me_ with the problem it's _you_ Malik, so kindly stop taking it out on me. Just because nobody likes you doesn't mean the rest of us have to buy into your pathetic seclusion. And you know what? Have the fucking auditorium. Hope you have a nice time there by yourself, get used to it 'cause I personally can't see you being anything but alone for the rest of your life."

They stare at each other, and Louis feels a confusing sort of camaraderie with the other guy in this moment, as his expression perfectly mirrors what Louis is feeling right now. It's a painful mix of surprise, regret, and anger with a huge dose of hurt. There, they've accomplished what they always do, torn into each other until they both feel like shit, although it's never felt this bad before. Malik is opening and closing his mouth like he wants to say more but can't, and Louis decides to flee before he can.

Whispers chase him out of the room. He's supposed to be in his theory class like, five minutes ago, but he really doesn't feel up to sitting through a lecture right now so he heads to the green room instead. There are a few people there, one an unidentifiable lump asleep beneath a blanket, and two first years who are background Pink Ladies in the play. Jessica and Tilly he thinks are their names; they have the tv out and he meanders over to see the Summer Lovin' scene playing. The girls greet him with warm smiles, but their attention is fixed studiously on the movie. One of them is even taking notes. God he loves this cast.

He sits down on an empty couch, but can't relax. He feels jittery and unstable, and can't stop fidgeting with his clothes. His heart is still racing from the confrontation, the anxious roiling in his gut far from faded. Malik's rant plays over and over in his head, the words bouncing around in his skull until he thinks he's going to go crazy. He knows the words aren't true. He knows himself and knows that the relationships he has with his peers are good ones, knows that his path to get to this point, though unconventional, had been the right one.

Normally being in this room makes him feel warm and at home, right now it’s just enhancing the feelings of doubt and insecurity that Malik planted. Louis grabs one of the half-dozen boyfriend pillows that he'd bought wholesale on Amazon and tucks the polyester arm around his neck. He takes in the knickknacks scattered around him, the lava lamp shaped like a ketchup bottle that he'd found at a garage sale, the cheap beaded curtain tacked up at the door, the custom screen-print he'd asked one of the design students to make of a window overlooking Trafalgar Square, Kevin the plastic pigeon perched beside it. The space is undeniably _Louis_ , he'd overseen basically all of the decorating and contributed the most junk. But he'd done it for the whole club, and they like it, everyone says so.

He wants to call him mum. He's got his phone in his hand open to her contact page, thumb edging towards the [call] button. But he can't. He can't bother her now, not when she's got four of her seven children home with nasty head colds. When he'd spoken to her just the other night shed barely slept all weekend and was considering taking Jack to the hospital because she was worried he might be developing an ear infection as well. And Phoebe has started wetting the bed again after they'd all thought she'd outgrown it. She doesn't need her full-grown son calling up whining about his bruised pride on top of everything.

What he _really_ wants is to be there with them. He'd offered to drive down to help out over the phone, had almost done so anyways when she told him not to. It's instinct, the urge to drop everything and race home at the slightest hint that he's needed. After the divorce it had been the overwhelming priority in his life, he'd dropped his new (already failing, already disillusioning) career and life in London's west end to move back to Doncaster and help with the kids. He'd convinced his old boss at the diner to rehire him (although the prick had refused to pay him his old wage, making him restart at the bottom of the chain despite three years of experience) and gone back to waiting tables six days a week to help with the bills.

Even after his mum had met Dan, even after they got married and moved into a bigger, nicer house, he retained this constant itch to be there in case something happens again. He wishes he was home with them, rocking little Gracie to sleep, soothing poor colicky Jack with a lullaby, helping Daisy and Pheobe with their times tables, driving Fizz to her footie games, listening to Lottie's boy problems. He doesn't regret coming back to school, he's having a blast really, but he misses the uncomplicated family life that he'd built back in Doncaster.

Especially now. Especially after having all of his insecurities torn into by some random art student he's barely spoken two civil words to. He hates that even though he _knows_ , he _does_ , that the things that Malik said were all bullshit, it still affects him. Although it is good to know the reasons, however twisted they are, why Malik has been a right bitch to him for the past two semesters.

Louis had sort of been under the impression that the guy hated him for spilling tea on his sketchbook. Still, it probably hadn't helped his case that the first time they'd met Louis had been carrying a full cup of hot liquid and been in a rush to get to his first ever university class and that his path had been unfortunately timed with Malik's in a way that ended with them both in a puddle on the ground.

Now, Louis is big enough to admit that he probably hadn't handled the situation as well as he could have, but he'd been late and nervous and now tealess. And Malik had overreacted like woah, eyes widening as he picked up his damp pages, taking in the light brown stains with undue horror. The bloke had looked like he was about to cry, which was a bit much considering it couldn't have been more than a dozen sketches that were affected.

"Sorry mate, that's a right shame." Louis had said chipperly, wincing as the scalding tea soaked into his sleeve. The other boy hadn't replied at first, just stared mournfully down at the page in his hands, a rather nice pencil drawing of a laughing dark-haired girl. He'd looked up slowly to where Louis was standing awkwardly wondering if it would be off-side to leave while the guy was still hunched on the floor.

"You...you've ruined them!" He'd rasped with an alarming level of rage warping his otherwise objectively beautiful features. "Look at them!"

"I think ruined is a bit drastic." Louis protested, shuffling his feet uncomfortably, peering at another page that's full of painstakingly detailed eyes, the same pair from the looks of them, copied over and over from different angles in black pen with what looks like blue watercolour highlights. "Like, don't people do that on purpose sometimes? It's like, vintage looking right? Looks even better that way if you ask me."

Obviously the wrong thing to say, the guy scowls incredulously. "What- vintage? What the fuck are you kidding me?"

"Listen mate-"

"Don't call me that." The Malik had snarled, pushing himself to his feet, and Louis remembers being scared for a split second, that he was about to punch him.

"Fine, whatever. It's just that I'm late for class so I'm going to go ahead and move along. Sorry about your pictures, but don't be a dick about it."

So yeah, in hindsight he could have been more sympathetic. But how was he supposed to know that Malik holds a grudge like a motherfucker and the six months since have been characterized by dirty looks across the campus, knocked shoulders in the halls, and attempts like today's, Malik seemingly intent on making his life difficult.

His phone vibrates violently, startling him out of his musings. He flicks the text open and his wilted spirits perk up.

 

Louis jumps to his feet, waves goodbye to the girls, and forces all negative thoughts from his mind. He has a probably-date with an adorable boy and Zayn fucking Malik isn't going to ruin it for him.

 

///

 

Louis looks at Harry's whole-wheat arugula wrap and lentil soup. He looks down at his own plate, heaping beef dip with a thick, melted slab of Swiss cheese with a side of chips and pouts. "Wow. I'm feeling wholly inadequate here."

Harry's eyes do wide as saucers, his eyebrows assuming a devastated angle. Even thought he has no clue what Louis is referring to, he jumps to refute him. "Wha? No! Why? You're brilliant!"

"Aww thanks Harreh!" Louis laughs, plucking up a chip and popping in in his mouth, savouring the greasy, salty goodness. "You're sweet. But it's just, I now see the reason you're a trim, fit young beanpole while I'm...not so much." He waves his hand at his food to make his point. "See? Not a veg in sight."

"No no! You're fit Louis! Totally fit! And I eat junk all the time, see?" He reaches across the small cafe table and grabs a handful of Louis' chips, chowing them down, before realizing what he's done and blushing in mortification. "Ah crap!" He chokes around the half-chewed potatoes, "Shit sorry, I didn't even ask-"

"Calm down its fine." Louis reassures him, chuckling behind a closed fist. "I don't mind sharing, as long as I get to try a bit of that soup." Even though the stuff kind of looks nasty, about the colour and texture of vomit. But he forces a mouthful anyway, because Harry shoves the bowl across the table so hard a little sloshes out.

It's nice. They're sitting in the front corner of a little eatery within walking distance of the school. Louis has been here a few times with friends, the food is good and since the target clientele is students, the prices are decent. It's still early enough that lunch rush hasn't started, so they're eating in relative privacy, the low winter sun filtering in through the window and bathing them in welcome warmth.

"So why'd you skip out early?" Louis asks, swirling a lukewarm chip in his au jus. "I'd've thought you academic types would be piling on the review at this point."

"Would it be hokey to say I was too excited about this to pay attention?" Harry replies with a wink. "It was just botany anyway, there's only so much to say about moss."

Louis feels his face heat happily. "Botany? Like, what is this, fucking Hogwarts? Are ye a wizard 'arry?"

The other boy laughs, the high-pitched cackle contrasting starkly with his bassy speaking voice. "That's herbology that you're thinking of Lou. Don't let the name fool you, I'm not nearly exciting enough for Hogwarts."

"Oh my god you're secretly a nerd aren't you?" Louis kicks a foot under the table to lightly knock against his companion's shin.

"Dunno if it's a secret." Harry shrugs, "But like, those books are a national treasure you know? And basically required reading for nineties kids."

Louis dips his head in faux embarrassment. "True confession..."

"No!" Harry yelps, smacking his palms on the table, then jerking to steady his plates when they clatter. "Lou _is_ you can't tell me you didn't."

He holds up his hands in surrender. "Hey, I've seen the films like, a zillion times."

Harry continues to gape like he's been punched in the stomach by his own mother. "But...Louis...it's _Harry Potter_."

" _Don't_ ," Louis begs, only part way kidding. He's dealt with enough snobbery already today. "tell me you're of the mentality that books _must_ be read before seeing the movie. I don't know if this relationship can survive that kind prejudice."

Harry actually looks panicked. "Of course not! Just, those books were basically my childhood. I'm sad you missed out."

Louis pats his hand consolingly. "Don't waste your tears Harold, I was a cheerful enough youth nonetheless. Just a bit slow with the whole reading thing. I did try them a few years back, 'coz my sister was obsessed, but I dunno, the writing was so childish."

"But that's the beauty of it, they mature with the reader! It's genius!"

"Yeah well, I missed the window I guess." Louis hums, a little put off by the conversation, and the way Harry is still looking at him like he's some sort of blasphemer. The boy seems to realize that Louis done with the topic, and hurries to make amends.

"Hey, I didn't mean to sound so judgy." He says softly, in that deliciously husky voice of his. "S'nothing wrong with not liking a book just cuz everyone else does. Good to stick with your own opinions."

Louis smiles gratefully, because he can tell that Harry honestly hadn't meant it like that. "Don't worry 'bout it mate. Hey, maybe you should come over and read it to me sometime. Think I might be able to pay attention if it were your voice doin' the telling."

Harry blushes and busies himself fussing with his fringe. "That sounds nice." He murmurs shyly, then peeks back up with earnest green eyes. "But seriously, it was twatty of me. I know what it's like when people assume shit, and it sucks that I made you feel like that. Don't want you to think I'm that kind of asshole."

"Oh jeezus you look like a kicked puppy. Listen, I don't think that okay? You were just excited about those dumb books and I'm just in a touchy mood 'cuz of this one random jerk and I was projecting onto you which it's fair at all. You're lovely, really."

Harry look relieved and then concerned, in that order. "What happened? Did somebody mess with you?"

Louis shakes his head, at once not wanting to get into it and needing to unload a bit. "Just this bloke. He like, hates me or something based on rumours that are absolute bull."

"Rumours?" Harry asks, before wincing and amending. "Crap sorry, you don't have to tell me."

"It's whatever." Louis says more casually than he feels. "As I said they aren't _true_ , it just blows that it's even an issue you know?"

Harry nods. "People are shit."

"Yeah." Louis bits at his thumbnail a little, a nervous habit that he's mostly given up, but that still pops up now and again. "It's just like, it doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt. Like, people think that just 'coz I'm almost twenty-three and only technically in first year, it means I'm lazy, or dumb, or spoiled. When they don't even know me, know _nothing_ about my life or what I've got going on."

"That's really shitty." Harry says in such a heartfelt, understanding way. His eyes are full of compassion and he's leaning forward onto his elbows with genuine interest, so Louis thinks _fuck it_ and continues.

"So basically, I was a bit of a cock in highschool." He says, startling a laugh out of the other boy. "Okay correction, I was a _total_ cock in highschool. I grew up in a pretty small town and I think my mum tried to compensate for my dad ditching us by being twice as proud of me as normal mums, so I got pretty used to people telling me how brilliant I was. It went to my head and for most of my life I thought I was hot shit. In hindsight I was just really obnoxious and I don't know how I escaped being beaten every day."

Harry makes a noise of protest and Louis laughs. "No seriously, you don't even know. You would've hated me for sure."

"Not likely." Harry hums, and Louis scoffs and blushes.

"So when A levels rolled 'round, I though myself _above_ all that nonsense, didn't study at all, and bombed the lot of 'em. I hauled ass to London expecting to be cast straight away, and obviously, everyone and their dog was better than me. Better at acting, better at singing, and had the degrees to prove it. I sulked about town for a few more months, worked as one of those singing waiters at this dive in the crappiest neighborhood you can imagine. And then my mum calls me up _hysterical_ because my stepdad up and left. Left her with four little girls, so I packed right up, not that I was doing anything _worthwhile_ , and moved back in with her."

The sun is streaming directly in through the window, making Louis feel suddenly extremely overheated. He tugs at the collar of his jumper. "Mark paid support and everything, but it's not the same you know. A cheque in the mail every month doesn't make up for losing a dad and a husband. And like that wasn't fucked enough we couldn't afford to keep the house so we had to move and the girls had to go to a different school and I couldn't even get a proper job since I'd barely even finished sixth form. Life was right shitty for a while. And even after mum met Dan and things got better, I'd spent all of my savings that could have gone to uni on just getting by, so I had to work hard to get to the point where I could even think about school, plus I had to redo my A levels. So like, I just have a really low tolerance for assholes who jump to conclusions about any of it."

"Yeah. Shit Lou." Harry breathes. And Louis really doesn't want his pity, but there's none of that in his face. The boy actually looks more awed and fond than anything, which is a pretty great reaction actually. "Hey, come on, let’s go outside." He throws down enough money to cover both of their meals plus a healthy tip, grabbing Louis' elbow and pulling him towards the exit before he can protest.

"Buy me dessert at the Sweet Shack and we'll call it even." Harry says, starting to meander down the sidewalk in the direction of the bakery that is another hub for students. "Hey." He nudges Louis' shoulder after a moment. "I don't know what that jerk said to you, and I don't care. You're amazing."

The cold late autumn air is refreshing against his burning cheeks. "Just did what was right." He mumbles, "It was 'bout time I grew up."

" _No_ , don't short sell yourself. That story...it's incredible. You're amazing and I can't imagine how strong you had to have been, you deserve nothing but kudos. I hate that people have the nerve to give you a hard time."

Louis feels something in his chest snap, the ugly bubble of doubt and self-loathing that had been simmering all for the past hour bursts. "Thank you." He whispers hoarsely. "Needed to hear that I think."

"Oh my god." Harry whines, stopping in his tracks. Louis takes a moment to pause as well, half turning to face the other boy. "Can I hug you?" Harry asks, "Please let me hug you."

"If you insist." Louis replies bashfully, just in time for Harry  to move forward and wrap him in the best hug he's gotten from someone outside him girls.

"Must've been so hard." Harry says in Louis' ear, and yeah, that's the simplified gist if it. He closes his eyes and presses his nose into the grey wool of Harry's coat, his soft cream scarf. He thinks about holding Fizzy in the middle of the night while she cried for her daddy, about Lottie running away one day and catching the bus to their old house where Louis had found her five terrifying hours later. He thinks about the mould problem in their tiny new apartment, his mum having to share a room with her twelve year-old daughter while the other three girls share the second bedroom, Louis left to dismantle the shelves in the hall closet to make room for his own narrow mattress. He thinks of counting his tips at the end of each night knowing that it would determine whether or not they splurge for the good bread this week, and he thinks of how often it'd fallen short. He thinks of sitting down with his mum to calculate how much they'd have to cut back in order to buy the twins new winter jackets. Of having to grit his teeth and tell his baby sisters that half of Santa's elves had gotten the flu in order to explain why they'd only received half of their already short wish lists. Of seeing Stan off to his second year of uni, but missing the farewell pub-crawl because he'd had to work a night shift.

"Was worth it though." He sighs against Harry's shoulder.

They resume walking, and it actually takes a few blocks for Louis to realize that they're holding hands. They both have their phones out in their free hands, leaning into each other. Louis shows off his most recent photos of his siblings, and Harry actually squeals out loud at the one of Louis with ten month-old Grace and Jack sleeping on each of his shoulders, their adorable little bums in matching onesies (Gracie in blue and Jack in pink because fuck gender norms.) In exchange Louis gets a better look at the one of Harry and the blonde toddler.

"Little Luxie." Harry identifies dopily, dimples deeper than Louis' seen them yet. "M' goddaughter. She jus' turned three."

"Looks like an angel." Louis cooes, and flicks through Harry's album after he receives a nod of consent. There are over two thousand photos, but Louis seems to be in a clump almost entirely composed of the little girl, as well as a young couple who must be her parents.

"There's my sis." Harry points when the scene changes, the new pictures featuring a pretty girl whose resemblance to Harry is uncanny. "Gemma. And her fiancée. That's right before their engagement party." Louis scrolls on, more people filling what looks like a small bungalow. He catches a quick glimpse of Harry, face mushed against a dark-haired guy's only to be interrupted when the phone goes off in his hand, screen flashing to an oncoming call from **BFF 4 LYF <3<3**, display picture of a pale yellow lizard. "Ah sorry...I've just..."

"Yeah of course!" Louis passes the phone back, receiving his own in return.

"I'll just be a sec-" Harry picks up clumsily, refusing to remove his right hand from Louis' even though it means he misses the talk button the first time. "Hey Z, what's up?"

There a tiny, barely noticeable shift in the boy's face that Louis would never have spotted if he hadn't been dazing a little dreamily at it for the past hour and a half. "I've just grabbed lunch......what happened?...A friend...I can come........no really Z you don't sound okay. Seriously mate it's no big deal....you know I don't...Don't _say_ that.........just leave it. I'll be home soon okay?........Yeah I'm sure.... _alright_. Love you okay? See you soon."

He hangs up with a heaving sigh and pockets the phone, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "Everything okay?" Louis asks hesitantly.

"Yeah. Well, not exactly." His grip tightens in Louis' hand. "My best mate. He sounded pretty upset."

"Oh." Louis says. He's disappointed, he'd intended to see if Harry wanted to muck around town long enough to grab dinner too. And maybe a movie. And then he'd sleep over and they'd have breakfast and Louis would never let him leave. One life-long date. "You need to go?"

"I don't want to." Harry sounds so frustrated that Louis can't help but chuckle. "I'm having a lot of fun Louis. I really like you."

"I like you too." Louis' grinning hard enough that he knows he slips past looking his best and into maniac baby monkey. "And I still owe you dessert. And you owe me homemade cupcakes and an epic reading of Harry Potter. So. We'll just have to do this again."

"Tomorrow." Harry says instantly. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Class at half ten, through 'til two-thirty. After that I'm free."

"I've got to work until five. Let me take you to dinner."

Louis tisks and shakes his head, making Harry's face fall. "Don't you try that, you paid today, _I_ get to pay for tomorrow's dinner."

"Deal." Harry agrees giddily. "Come on, your place is on my way, I'll walk you home."


	4. Zayn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Belated exclaimers that I've taken creative liberties with all of the characters in this fic, ESPECIALLY the boys' relatives. 
> 
> And Merry Christmas! Let me know what you think!

Zayn wakes up tangled in Harry's limbs. In the fuzzy, scattered seconds between slumber and waking, he feels the warmth and weight of another body and automatically rolls closer, relishing the feeling of bare skin and heartbeat. He stretches contentedly, nuzzling against soft locks of hair, mind blissfully blank as he inhales his companion's scent. Shae-butter and spicy vanilla cologne. Zayn opens his eyes and wakes up.

"Morning love." Harry voice rumbles under his arm, knocking his skull lightly where it rests against Zayn's. "Sleep alright?"

He groans, burying his face into the mattress by Harry's shoulder, trying to chase the fleeting dreams of purple-tinged blonde hair and bell-like laughter under the pillow. 

"Hey. Z. Z. Zaaaayyn." Harry's spindly fingers prod at his side. "Babe, as much as I'd love to let you sleep as long as you want to, I know for a fact you've got critique in an hour."

"Ugh." Zayn rolls onto his back and scrubs his hand over his face, scratching at the week's worth of whiskers on his chin. His head throbs like it does every morning the night after he lets himself have a cry. And now he's expected to stand in front of his peers at nine in the bloody morning, putting his soul up on the wall while they pick it apart. He is _really_ not feeling it today.

"Sorry about last night." He mumbles to Harry as the other boy does the wobbly shimmy/hop necessary to get into those jeans of his. "Didn't mean to break down on you like that." If had just been the thing with Tomlinson, he'd have been able to cope with that. They'd had enough run-ins in the past two semesters that he doesn't freak out _every_ time it happens, even though they had been getting steadily more vicious lately. 

But then he'd gotten home to the empty apartment after a very emotional painting session, to two things. One had been a phone call from Doniya's therapist letting him know that she's being processed for release. That in itself is not wholly negative or wholly positive; what it is is wholly stressful. Of course it would be brilliant to have his sister home, and lord knows she's been out of her mind with boredom shut away in the centre, but at the same time, it's scary. At least right now she's safe and with people who've been trained to help her. Outside she's more or less on her own, and it's so, so easy for her to spiral back. 

Emotions already going in every direction, he'd thoughtlessly popped online, only to be greeted with a slew of photos from a party that had obviously taken place the night before, a party at which virtually every member of his old group appeared to have attended, including Perrie. 

He'd gotten lost in album after album, eyes scanning each high-contrast, red-eye filled image for a glimpse of blonde-and-pink-and-purple. She was there over and over, laughing with Jonnie, dancing between Leigh-Anne and Jesy, raising solo cups in cheers with Ant and Jade. And the real kicker, looking real cozy perched on Danny's lap. He'd stared at that one for ages, fixated on the placement of his old mate's hand resting high on her jegging-clad thigh, how his scruffy chin was tucked up at the bare curve of her neck, nose turned to disrupt the multi-hued cascade of her hair. 

He'd worked himself up to hyperventilation by the time he called Harry. Tomlinson's voice on a repeating loop in his head, _"You're a genuine asshole aren't you?"_ and _"can't see you being anything but alone for the rest of your life."_

"Oh my god Z." Harry belly-flops back onto the bed, still shirtless, and glowers through his puffy tangle of bedhead. "I need you to stop apologizing. I've said from the start, call me _whenever_. Even if you're just like, feeling sad 'cause we ran out of crisps I want you to let me know."

"Just can't keep relying on you." Zayn grumbles. "Like, you actually have a life and I keep dragging you away to come hold my hand. It's pathetic."

"So help me I will actually punch you." Harry gripes, grabbing Zayn's foot through the blankets and giving it a rough shake. "I'm not even going to point out all the things wrong with what you're saying because you know full well. Also time is ticking by if you want to shower."

"Not gonna." Zayn replies, squirming out of the covers and setting his feet on the cold hardwood with a shudder. "Why bother. Got no one to look nice for." He grabs one of Harry's sweaters up off the chair in the corner where he keeps the worn-but-not-dirty-enough-to-wash clothes. He catches sight of himself in the mirror, and it's a sign of how crushed his pride is that he doesn't even care that his hair is dull with grease, or that there's an ugly red zit beginning to blossom on his chin. 

"Look nice for yourself!" Harry pleads, but Zayn doesn't really think he has ground to stand on, seeing as all he does to the mess he calls hair is to push it back until it looks like he's been walking straight into very a high wind. "Well like, I don't actually give a shit if you shower or not, but get rid of that attitude! I hate it when you talk like that."

"You sound like my mum." Zayn grunts, swiping Harry's navy beanie and shoving it roughly over his head. " _Watch your attitude young man, check that sass at the door."_

"Words of wisdom." Harry says sagely. "You need help with your stuff?"

"Yeah, could you?" Zayn leads the way across the hall into his room. The presentation is for his interpretations class, and he'd done a multi-part work to the broad theme 'fresh'. He chose to do the four pieces on the more narrow subjects of 'spring' (abstract in deep greens and light gold,) 'youth' (an organic shapes study in pink, robins egg and teal,) 'new' (value study of chrome with electric blue highlights,) and 'purity' (a sfumato close-up of a frayed rope.) They're all pretty big, so he's grateful Harry's here to help him truck it all to school. Also, carrying art on public transit alone always makes him feel like a dick.

They struggle out the door with the canvases (safely swaddled in garbage bags because he'd had been an extremely traumatic experience in highschool involving a watercolour term-project and a freak rainstorm that Zayn would rather die than relive.) Harry possess freaky sloth arms so the transport goes fairly smoothly, they even get the paintings to the class and hung up early enough to go grab some breakfast. "Hey, I'll walk you to work." He says to Harry. 

Harry ducks his head, but not enough to hide the smile that's fighting it's way onto his lips, "Oh, my shift doesn't start until eleven." 

Zayn scrunches his face in confusion, "What the hell are you up this early for, then?" There's no way he'd get out of bed three hours before he had to be anywhere, not counting the day before when he'd rushed in order to get to school in time to book the auditorium. It had been petty, but the unmistakable ruffling of Tomlinson's feathers had been worth it.

"Got to make a quick grocery run." Zayn walks with him to the exit anyways, he still needs to eat something after all. "Then I'm gonna bribe Niall into helping me make cupcakes."

"Cupcakes? What happened to the diet?"

Harry sticks out his lower lip in a disgruntled sulk. "'S not a _diet_ it's called _eating healthy_."

Zayn shrugs. "Whatever mate. Say, you makin' real cupcakes this time or are they going to be those rubbish gluten-free, no eggs, vegan ones?"

"Well considering Niall dumped all that melted butter and chocolate syrup all over the last batch, and cancelled out any effort on my part to save you from a future of diabetes and cankles, I'm not going to bother. These're gonna be the real deal."

"Cream-cheese icing?" Zayn begs eagerly. He's not huge on sweet things, but Harry makes this wicked spicy icing with cinnamon that he somehow manages to get fluffy like whipped cream and it's just so _good_. 

Harry laughs hard enough that Zayn feels like he's missed something, but chooses not to ask. "Yeah Z." He says brightly, "'M thinking classic red velvet. I'll be sure to make extra for you lads."

"Extra?" Zayn raises his brows and Harry jumps like he's been caught doing something naughty. "Who's getting the not-extra then eh? You go a year of not baking for us an' then go no-stops for some random?"

"What? He's not a random...what does that even mean? They're just for a friend. I'll make a double batch if you want me to."

"Not the point Harry." Zayn jeers, tugging at his friend's hair playfully. Of course, the guy is basically the living, breathing equivalent of a rag-doll, letting himself be patted and pulled. "Who is it, you seeing someone new?" 

Harry doesn't like to talk about his relationships. He hasn't dated properly in a while, and it's because of Zayn. Harry is under the impression that if anyone who is happy and in love gets too close, Zayn will fall apart. And while it does still smart a little to see those ooey-gooey type couples, out and about holding hands and cuddling and exchanging sweet kisses, he's not made of glass. He's tried explaining this, but Harry still refuses to bring any of his dates around the apartment. 

" _Just a friend_ , you nosy Parker." Harry huffs, reaching out to pull his beanie down over Zayn's eyes, effectively detangling his fingers from his hair. When he gets the wool out of his face, Harry has danced out of reach, jogging backwards down the sidewalk. "I'll see you tonight okay?" He calls, blowing a cheeky kiss. 

"Whatever Styles! Don't tell me about your secret lover, see if I care!" Zayn yells after him grinning at the hand his friend raises in farewell. 

 

///

 

Critique goes well. It always goes well. It may make him sound like a twat, but he's good at what he does, probably the best in the class. His piece gets tonnes of praise, both from the other students and his instructor. Even their suggestions for areas of improvement are so mild and so thickly cushioned in compliments that they fizzle before they really get a chance to make impact.

"All in all this is marvelous work Zayn really." His instructor, kind, mousy Kay who refuses to let them call her anything more professorial, had gushed, shaggy brown hair falling unevenly into her huge eyes. "Really, really good. Keep on doing what you're doing."

Keep on doing what he's doing. Keep doing. Keep on. 

He's sitting with his back against the biggest platform in the centre of the studio. Its quarter past noon and everyone else has cleared out. The easels have all been shoved to one corner of the classroom for the custodians, leaving plenty of room to sprawl his legs out in front of him and stare up at his paintings still up on the wall. 

"Keep doing what I'm doing." He says out-loud to the empty room. When there isn't the low chatter of working students there's a buzz that fills the air, stemming from the rows of gallery lights. They also warm up the room fairly quickly, and Zayn's starting to feel a bit overheated. "What I'm doing. What the fuck am I doing though, that's the question."

His life has become a routine, he wakes up, he goes to class, he paints, he goes home where he waits for his roommates to get back and keep him company, he goes to bed. In between he eats, he pisses, he makes polite conversation with people who might call themselves his friends but never see him outside of school, he talks to his sisters. Once a month he borrows Niall's mate's truck and takes some paintings to the home decor shop in town and they let him put them up for sale in their store. 

Keep doing what you're doing.

Kay is a lovely woman. In her mid-thirties, she's already had work in shows all throughout Britain, and collaborated with some pretty big names. She's a genius with oils, and sweet as can be, but she has a heart ten times too soft to be teaching a third-year university course. “ _Marvelous work. Really good. Keep on Zayn, keep on."_ He'd been hoping for something, anything to sink his teeth into. Something to really work at. 

The lights illuminate the particles of dust that are thick in the air. They float in front of his paintings, dimming the colours. He doesn't really understand his nobody had pointed out all the things that are flawed with them. The obviously unfinished patch of green in one, the overworked brush-strokes there, the way the shadows had gotten slightly tainted with white. Even from half-way across the room he can see countless imperfections, so many things he could have done better. 

But it's marvelous work. He should just keep doing what he's doing. Don't look to improve, don't look to change, be happy with the work you do. Zayn's dreading the holidays. When there's a month of nothing but empty days to fill, just doing what he’s doing.

The hinges of the door have squeaked for as long as Zayn's been at the school, so he hears loud and clear when someone pushes into the room. He sighs, a little miffed that his quiet time has been interrupted, but in reality it's probably a good thing or else he would have sat there brooding for ages which, as Harry likes to fret, isn't the healthiest pastime. He grabs up his tattered, paint-encrusted messenger bag and heaves himself to his feet, ready to clear out.  

"Sorry." The guy says. "They told me this room'd be empty. I can come back later."

Zayn spars him a glance out of courtesy. He's a young guy with dark hair, and Zayn would have assumed he was a student if not for the tool-belt hung low from his worn jeans, and the clunky work boots that are dirty and scuffed enough to mean that they're actually for practical use, not just fashion. "Don't bother." Zayn tells him, "I'm just leaving."

The guy looks relieved, and heads over to where the easels are clustered. Zayn moves for the door, but pauses to watch him pull one out by its wooden frame. "Just out of curiosity, what are you doing?"

"Oh!" The guy straightens from where he'd been crouched, examining one of the wheels, "Yeah um, they've hired me- well, my company, but they've hired us to make new easels." He slaps one of the upright beams. "These guys have gotta be like, twenty years old. Maybe more. I'm surprised they're still functional to be honest."

Most of then aren't. The ones that are still adjustable are incredibly sticky and you need to really whack away at them until they move. It's right infuriating. "So what, you're here to take these away?"

"Not yet." The bloke answers, "Else you'd have nothing to paint on. Just checking em out to see if any of the wood is salvageable. But looking at them now, I'm thinking that I'm better off just chucking the lot. They're in pretty poor shape."

"Chucking? Wot you're just gonna throw them out?" Zayn frowns. There's one within reach of where he's standing, and his hand flies unbidden to run over the wood. It's scored and thickly coated with all manner of mediums. He digs his nail hard into the layers of paint. "Seems like a waste dunnit?"

"I guess. They're broken though, the new ones'll be much nicer to paint on and stuff."

For some reason it really bothers Zayn. These easels have treated him well, seen him through some tough times. They have character, even if they're ugly and their pieces don't slide as smoothly. He can't stand the thought of them buried in some dump. "Let me have them."

"You want...all of them?" The guy asks in disbelief, "Mate there's like, forty of them."

"Forty three." Zayn affirms. He's spent a lot of time in this room and when that creative block hits sometimes you do anything to find the rhythm again, even if that means methodically documenting every detail of the room. Counting easels is probably the least strange thing he's done in search of inspiration. The guy still thinks it's pretty strange though, going by his perturbed expression. 

"Okay, and you want all forty-three?"

"Yeah. If you're just going to throw 'em out anyway that shouldn't be a problem right?"

The guy squirms and rubs the buzzed hair at the back of his head. Then he tugs at the neck of his shirt trepidatiously, and then cracks his knuckles anxiously, all with a tortured look on his face. It seems like deciding whether or not Zayn can have the goddamn easels is the hardest dilemma he's ever faced. He's probably one of those by-the-books type blokes who doesn't like to make a move without consulting his superiors. "I don't know...I'd have to check with some people."

"Come on _mate_." Zayn walks closer, almost expecting the other guy to take a step back like some sort of nervous animal. He doesn't though which is vaguely disappointing but also realistic because well, Zayn's  a skinny kid in too-big clothes and this guy is a strapping young carpenter who looks like he could bench-press Zayn is he wanted to. "Where's the harm? You need to get rid of 'em, what's the difference if it's me and the landfill?"

"No difference." It seems a struggle for him to admit. He crosses his arms, "But what the heck are you going to do with them?"

"I'll figure something out." Zayn says definitively. "I'll find use for them, or find people who will. Just because they don't work as well as they used to doesn't mean they aren't still useful."

He doesn't get a reply, just a subtle shift in expression from bemused to carefully appraising. Zayn scowls self-consciously and steps right into the guy's space. "You have a card then?"

"Huh?" And the befuddled expression is back. Zayn rolls his eyes.

"A business card. Got one?"

"I...no I don't. Didn't really expect to need one..."

"Okay then just give me your number." Zayn gets out the sharpie that he always keeps in his back pocket, and holds it out to the guy, along with his forearm, sleeve pushed back. They guy takes a while to accept the pen, movements slow and cautious like Zayn's a psycho with a gun. He finds a clear patch of skin, below the ZAP, and writes a string of digits.

"I'll call you when I figure out what I'm doing with them." Zayn says in a tone that invites no argument. "I'm assuming you'd like them gone by terms end?"

"Um. As long they're out before New Years I think you're good?" The guy says, capping the pen and handing it back. "Give us time to get the new batch in before classes start."

Zayn nods he's got almost a month to find new homes for the things. If not then their apartment might get a little crowded for a while, and as easy-going Harry and Niall are, even they would have some protests to playing warehouse to a load of worn-out art supplies. "I can do that." He says, as much to himself as the other man.

"Okay. Should I...?" The poor guy looks lost, hovering like Zayn's just upset the balance of the universe.

"I'll call you." Zayn repeats. Then he's out the door before the interaction can get any more awkward. Because apparently Zayn has reached the level of anti-social that his actions disturb the poor, simple hired help. He should just give up on the whole higher education plan and run off into the woods to fulfill his destiny as creepy-hermit artist. 

On the way out of the school he spots a new Grease poster. This one is huge, a fridge-sized sheet of glossy paper, must have cost (wasted) a sizable chunk of the department's already stretched budget. If features Louis Tomlinson blown up into life-sized glory, hair swirled up into a quiff and looking stupid in a leather jacket. The girl who's playing Sandy - Hanna Zayn thinks her name is - is posed slightly behind Tomlinson's shoulder, wide-eyes and adoring. Zayn feels the smooth length of the sharpie still in his palm. 

**I'm an ignorant wanker!** He scrawls above Tomlinson's head, encapsulated in a ballooning speech-bubble. Taking a page out of the drama club's own book (because seriously, that Stan fellow draws dicks on pretty much any surface within reach. It's a borderline fixation) he draws a nice, fat cock protruding from his forehead. Just to make sure his opinion is clear, he adds **TIT** across the white of his T-shirt before capping the pen and marching out, a new spring to his step. 

 

///

 

The walk from the school to their apartment takes twenty minutes if you tackle it at a brisk pace. It's closer to forty when you take it like Zayn, that is, slow and meandering and stopping every five minutes to light up a new cigarette. 

Addiction runs strong in his family, as his mother had informed him when he was fourteen, trembling and exhausted in the hospital, waiting for them to finish pumping his sister's stomach. 

"All you can do is fight it as best you can." She had said, stroking his hair back from his shell-shocked, tear-streaked face. "You'll be fighting all your life, but its worth it baby, please never forget its worth it."

Zayn inhales one last drag of cigarette number four, pauses his steps to extract a fresh one from his pocket, and touches the still-smoldering stub to the end. Flicking the spent one to the ground he stomps it out and resumes walking. 

Eight years ago. Eight years ago and he'd been in year nine and his parents had been in the next town overnight and Doniya had thrown a party because that's what sixteen year-olds who're left home alone are supposed to do. Zayn had just had Harry over, as usual, not daring enough to invite their other friends. But the house had filled up anyway, with all sorts of people, Doniya's friends and friends-of-friends and the neighbour kid who always smells like weed. 

Eight years ago Zayn had been wide-eyed and nervous of all the older people making a mess of their house. He and Harry had shut themselves in his room with Doni's laptop and a bowl of crisps they'd managed to swipe. But Harry had eventually needed to use the bathroom, and hadn't wanted to go alone so the two of them had tiptoed cautiously down the hall. They found Doniya limp on the tiles, vomit soaking the bath-mat and eyes rolled back in her head. 

It's confusing because despite her words, his mum stopped fighting after that, taking up smoking again for the first time since before Zayn was born. Her brother, Zayn's uncle Walter, died the next year in a car accident involving a drunk driver. Zayn doesn't find out until years later that his uncle had been the drunk one. Then his granddad died of lung cancer. Then his dad found Doni's stash when he went to fix the squeaky floorboard in her room. Then Doni goes into rehab for the first time. Six years ago now, and Zayn stopped fighting.

Harry hates him smoking because of course he does. Zayn calls him a hypocrite because of the one semester that Harry had spent in a weed-induced haze and his grades had suffered from the constant skipping, except for his prose-writing class in which he'd gotten almost one hundred percent. Harry will argue weakly for weed being less addictive and less harmful than cigarettes, but he still can't claim the higher ground for this one. 

Zayn will go through phases of trying to quit. He'd managed three months at one point, when he and Perrie had first started dating and he'd been afraid it would scare her off, and he'd liked her so much. But after a while, when it was clear that they were both in it for the long run, and it turned out that Perrie wasn't all that bothered by smoking, would even join in for a social fag if they were doing it at a party, he regressed into the habit.

On days like this, he thinks he needs it. He knows that it's the addiction talking, but it doesn't change the fact that when he's stressed his fingers itch for it. Some days he worries that if he doesn't feel the familiar, acrid curl of smoke in his body, he'll just do something more self-destructive, like pulling out his hair or tearing at his skin. 

Number five is down to little more than ashes, so he reaches blindly into his pocket to grab a sixth. Touches it to the ember with a practiced hand and continues. 

With the steadying glow of nicotine filling his system, Zayn can fully appreciate the idiocy of the situation he's got himself in. Forty-three crappy easels. What the hell is he going to do with them? He could keep one for himself, but he's already got two, a lovely wooden one that stays in the corner of his room and a collapsible metal one that he takes with him when he wants to paint outside. 

In the span of five minutes he'd managed to make himself look like a crazy person in front of an innocent handy-man, as well as procure a bunch of lousy old easels that nobody in their right mind would want. It's also very possible that he's started projecting his own issues onto inanimate objects. He holds the cigarette firmly between his lips and pushes back the sleeve of his jacket to squint at the numbers written in wobbly script over the bone of his wrist. He could just forget about the whole thing, not call and let them deal with it. 

But like, that would be a shit thing to do now that he's said he would, plus there's a part of him that still really doesn't like the idea of the easels being tossed away. 

The apartment is empty when he gets home, as expected. Niall has class until six and Harry's at work all afternoon. Zayn deposits the end of his last cigarette into the ash-tray that lives perched on the railing outside their door and shoulders his way in. 

There's a faint cloying scent permeating the rooms, growing stronger as he passes into the kitchen. The counters have been wiped spotless, but there's evidence of the mornings baking in the form of the giant silver mixing bowls drying in the rack, as well as a cellophaned platter of cupcakes sitting on the table. Zayn lifts a corner and grabs three in one hand, carefully replacing the plastic wrap before wandering to his room. When Doniya answers his skype call, he's already polished off one.

"Hot damn has H been baking?" Is the first thing out of his sister's mouth, "is that _cream cheese icing?_ " 

"Mhmmm." He mumbles, licking a strip across the top of another. Harry always makes double the standard amount of icing, layering it on deliciously thick just the way Zayn likes it. 

"Oh my god, _jealous_!" Doni moans, pouting in a way that makes her look like a teenager again. "It's casserole day today which, you know, translates to me skipping supper."

"You gotta eat Don." Zayn says with a slight frown, setting the pastry down to peer more closely at his sister's pixely image. She appears to be wearing dark leggings under a baggy hoodie, hair gathered in a bushy ponytail. She looks okay, circles under her eyes not too dark, the corners of her mouth turned into a smile. "Besides being nauseated over the mystery meat, how you feeling?"

"I'm alright." She replies, hands creeping to pull her hair over her shoulder, flattening the strands against the soft grey of her hoodie. "Gem came for a visit for a couple hours. We went for a walk. It was good."

"Sounds really nice." Zayn says honestly. Gemma's a doll, and when everything had blown up last winter and Zayn had been seriously considering dropping out and moving home, she'd been the one to sit him down and smack some sense back into him. Even though she's a year older than Doni and the two had never been particularly close, she'd promised to do her best to look out for her. The girls have grown pretty close since, and it's good to know that Doni's got someone. "How'd it go with Jen?"

Jen is her therapist or 'advisor', as she likes to put it. She's a nice enough woman, mid-fifties and possesses a reasonable, understanding attitude that is refreshing in an area of Doniya's life that has been dominated by condensing assholes trying to make her decisions for her. "Oh it was fine." Doni says, splitting her ponytail into three pieces to start a sloppy braid. "We just talked about what I'm gonna do when I get out and, you know, _how I feel_ about it."

Zayn grins at her pained expression. Doniya has seen various therapists on-and-off since she was in highschool, and has developed a patient exasperation with the whole process. "And did you reach any conclusions?"

"Not really." She's reached the end of her hair, so she methodically starts to undo the braid. "All I know for sure is that I can't go home."

"What? Why not?" 

She sighs, gets the last loop of hair dismantled, and rubs her hands over her face. "I don't want...I can't be around the girls like this. I've already put _you_ through so much, I can't do it to them too."

"Shut up it's not about me." Zayn growls. "Where is this coming from? Did dad say something? Did mum? They can't just leave you high and dry like this Doni."

"No Zayn. Well...mum may have come 'round the other day and we chatted...but the point _is_ ," she shuffles around on her single mattress, leaning forward on her elbows so that her drawn face fills the whole screen. "Do you realize how lucky we were that 'Liyah and Saf were at Rita's that night?"

"Well I'd like to think you wouldn't have thrown a rager if our four year-old sister was home." Zayn grumbles. But her words hold weight - it's a thought that'd kept Zayn up at night for months after the fact, if their sisters hadn't been at their Aunt's house and had been witness to beloved eldest sibling being rushed into an ambulance, sirens wailing. 

"Irrelevant. I _did_ throw a rager and I have to live with the fact that you're scarred for life-"

"M'not scarred."

"Shut up you totally are. You've got guilt issues like I've never seen before, social anxiety and trust issues. Also most likely an abandonment complex now. So yeah. I just can't subject them to my fucked up issues as well. Waliyah is the same age now as I was then, and Safaa's just at the stage when kids are discovering shit like alcohol and partying and drugs. Teenagers are so malleable and I won't play part in making them anything like me."

" _You're addiction isn't you_." Zayn says fiercely. He might perhaps be paraphrasing the contents of a self-help blog he'd read after Doniya's over-dose last year, but it had been pretty good stuff. "They need their big sister around. They haven't seen you in person in months and they miss you. They're old enough to handle it, they're very mature for their age. And you need to be safe and at home with our family."

"If you say anything about _stability_ or _normalcy_ I may have to punch you. In my mind. I will psychic beat the crap out of you Zaynie so help me."

"It's true though." Zayn huffs, grabbing his half-eaten cupcake and chewing furiously to try and distract himself from the panic in his chest. "Where the hell are you going to live Don?"

"Gemma and I talked about it." Doniya says around her thumb, nibbling at the nail bed. "She and Liam are willing to put me up for a bit if...well _when_ ,  I guess, when I get out. But all they've got is a sofa bed and even though they claim not to mind me staying, I don't fancy living there for any real amount of time."

Zayn's mind is whirling, jumping around between various scenarios. Doniya falling in with her old friends, the ones who never seem to have jobs, who sleep all day and party all night. Doniya trying to go it on her own, being turned down by every job she applies for, spirit withering away under the hopelessness. Situation after situation ends in her turning back to the drugs and the drink. "I'll talk to Harry and Niall." He says lowly, "Check the terms of our lease. You can have my room and I'll bunk with H. It'll be just like first year."

"Don't be ridiculous Z, I am not moving into my little brother's bachelor pad. Not even if it was the last apartment in town." 

"I'll move out then, at the end of term. We can find a place together, just the two of us."

"Oh my god _no_." She presses forward to crowd the camera, her dark eyes and sternly drawn brows the only things he can see. "Listen to me bud, cuz I'm getting real tired of this shit. _You need to live your life_. You have a good thing going for you Z, a nice apartment, a good education, more talent than I'll ever have, and great mates. You can't set any of that aside for me, you've done more than enough already."

"You're my sister." Zayn scowls, "There's no ‘enough’ when it comes to family. I want to help."

"You are helping babe, by being happy and healthy and having fun. You aren't the only one who worries you know."

They talk seriously for a while longer, Doniya mentions a job placement program that the centre offers, but it wouldn't be a long-term solution. They're jobs that would help her scrape by, not careers. "Jen said that she's keeping her ears open for any positions a the centre." Doniya says, and he notices that her eyes light up slightly. "A few of the counselors are former residents, they lead the group chats and go talk in high-schools and stuff like that. I think I'd enjoy something like that, feeling like is be making a difference, like I'm making something good come out of all of this."

It's something, and Zayn is able to sign off feeling mildly reassured that for now, at least, his sister has things to look forward to. That's always been the key, making sure there's always something on the horizon to trudge towards even when it feels like they're waist deep in shit. It used to be Perrie, coming home to her every day, making her laugh, the next time he could kiss her. After she left he'd floated weightlessly, lost in a bleak void with his sister locked away and the woman he'd fully intended on marrying out of his reach. Even his art, which had always served as a sort of constant glow throughout everything, had fled, his inspiration utterly dead. He'd latched onto Harry and Niall and it had taken all summer and a road-trip across the continent to rediscover how to be happy again. 

Zayn tilts his head back against the wall and thinks. Right now he has the term art show, Doniya potentially out in time for the holidays, Christmas back home with his family, New Years with the lads, a ski trip that they've been planning for ages. And now forty-three easels to re-home. 

He drops his head to the pillow, too late in remembering the plate with his last cupcake balancing there. "Perfect." He groans through a nose-full of icing. “Just bloody perfect.”


End file.
